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No. CCLXXXVI.

them, rather; our Bosom Friends—for we have them one and all by heart; and, as we shut our eyes in solitude, be it in parlour twilight or mountain gloom—at a word, at a wish, it is gradually overflowing with spiritual music, divinely intermingled with its own mysterious echoes!

The word even now happened to be—. It slid into our soul like an

angel's whisper, and forthwith,

were deploying before our inward eye multitudes of harmonious images along the mental heaven—within our inward ear a continuous succession of hymns, and odes, and elegies—the birth of genius, inspired by that immortal Passion—and eternized by song.

Silent as our shadow, with them we walk in reverence through those peaceful courts—and look upon the faces of the loveliest Two of all the Spirits that dwell on this side of Heaven.


 * Loe! two most goodly virgins came in place,
 * Ylinked arme in arme, in lovely wise;
 * With countenance demure, and modest grace,
 * They number'd even steps, and equall pace:
 * Of which the eldest, that Fidelia bight,
 * Like sunny beams threw from her christall face,
 * That could have dazed the rash beholder's sight,
 * And round about her head did shine like Heaven's light.


 * She was arraied all in lilly white,
 * And in her right hand bore a cup of gold,
 * With wine and water fill'd up to the height,
 * In which a serpent did himselfe enfold,
 * That horrour made to all that did behold;
 * But she no whitt did chaunge her constant mood:
 * And in her other hand she fast did hold
 * A book, that was both sign'd and seal'd with blood;
 * Wherein darke things were writt, hard to be understood.


 * Her younger sister, that Speranza hight,
 * Was clad in blew that her beseemed well;
 * Not all so chearefull seemed she of sight
 * As was her sister; whether dread did dwell