He little comprehends the true charm of the Rhine who gazes on the vines on the hill-tops without a thought of the imaginary world with which their recesses have been peopled by the graceful credulity of old; who surveys the steep ruins that overshadow the water, untouched by one lesson from the pensive morality of Time.
Everywhere around us is the evidence of perished opinions and departed races; everywhere around us, also, the rejoicing fertility of unconquerable Nature, and the calm progress of Man himself through the infinite cycles of decay.

He who would judge adequately of a landscape must regard it not only with the painter's eye, but with the poet's.
The feelings which the sight of any scene in Nature conveys to the mind--more especially of any scene on which history or fiction has left its trace--must depend upon our sympathy with those associations which make up what may be called the spiritual character of the spot.

If indifferent to those associations, we should see only hedgerows and ploughed land in the battle-field of Bannockburn; and the traveller would but look on a dreary waste, whether he stood amidst the piles of the Druid on Salisbury plain, or trod his bewildered way over the broad expanse on which the Chaldaean first learned to number the stars.
To the former editions of this tale was prefixed a poem on "The Ideal," which had all the worst faults of the author's earliest compositions in verse.

The present poem (with the exception of a very few lines) has been entirely rewritten, and has at least the comparative merit of being less vague in the thought, and less unpolished in the diction, than that which it replaces.
CONTENTS.
THE IDEAL WORLD THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE CHAPTER I.
In which the Reader is Introduced to Queen Nymphalin CHAPTER II.
The Lovers CHAPTER III.
Feelings CHAPTER IV.
The Maid of Malines CHAPTER V.
Rotterdam .-- The Character of the Dutch .-- Their Resemblance to the Germans .-- A Dispute between Vane and Trevylyan, after the manner of the ancient Novelists, as to which is preferable, the Life of Action, or the Life of Repose .-- Trevylyan's Contrast between Literary Ambition and the Ambition of Public Life CHAPTER VI.
Gorcum .-- The Tour of the Virtues: a Philosopher's Tale CHAPTER VII.
Cologne .-- The Traces of the Roman Yoke .-- The Church of St.
Maria .-- Trevylyan's Reflections on the Monastic Life .-- The Tomb of the Three Kings .-- An Evening Excursion on the Rhine CHAPTER VIII.
The Soul in Purgatory; or, Love Stronger than Death CHAPTER IX.
The Scenery of the Rhine analogous to the German Literary Genius .-- The Drachenfels CHAPTER X.
The Legend of Roland .-- The Adventures of Nymphalin on the Island of Nonnewerth .-- Her Song .-- The Decay of the Fairy-Faith in England CHAPTER XI.
Wherein the Reader is made Spectator with the English Fairies of the Scenes and Beings that are beneath the Earth CHAPTER XII.
The Wooing of Master Fox CHAPTER XIII.
The Tomb of a Father of Many Children CHAPTER XIV.
The Fairy's Cave, and the Fairy's Wish CHAPTER XV.
The Banks of the Rhine .-- From the Drachenfels to Brohl .-- An Incident that suffices in this Tale for an Epoch CHAPTER XVI.
Gertrude .-- The Excursion to Hammerstein .-- Thoughts CHAPTER XVII.
Letter from Trevylyan to -- --- CHAPTER XVIII.
Coblentz .-- Excursion to the Mountains of Taunus; Roman Tower in the Valley of Ehrenbreitstein .-- Travel, its Pleasures estimated differently by the Young and the Old .-- The Student of Heidelberg: his Criticisms on German Literature CHAPTER XIX.
The Fallen Star; or, the History of a False Religion CHAPTER XX.
Glenhausen .-- The Power of Love in Sanctified Places .-- A Portrait of Frederick Barbarossa .-- The Ambition of Men finds no adequate Sympathy in Women CHAPTER XXI.
View of Ehrenbreitstein .-- A New Alarm in Gertrude's Health .-- Trarbach CHAPTER XXII.
The Double Life .-- Trevylyan's Fate .-- Sorrow the Parent of Fame .-- Niederlahnstein .-- Dreams CHAPTER XXIII.
The Life of Dreams CHAPTER XXIV.
The Brothers CHAPTER XXV.
The Immortality of the Soul .-- A Common Incident not before Described.
-- Trevylyan and Gertrude CHAPTER XXVI.
In which the Reader will learn how the Fairies were received by the Sovereigns of the Mines .-- The Complaint of the Last of the Fauns .-- The Red Huntsman .-- The Storm .-- Death CHAPTER XXVII.
Thurmberg .-- A Storm upon the Rhine .-- The Ruins of Rheinfels .-- Peril Unfelt by Love .-- The Echo of the Lurlei-berg .-- St.Goar .-- Kaub, Gutenfels, and Pfalzgrafenstein .-- A certain Vastness of Mind in the First Hermits .-- The Scenery of the Rhine to Bacharach CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Voyage to Bingen .-- The Simple Incidents in this Tale Excused .-- The Situation and Character of Gertrude .-- The Conversation of the Lovers in the Tempest .-- A Fact Contradicted .-- Thoughts occasioned by a Madhouse amongst the most Beautiful Landscapes of the Rhine CHAPTER XXIX.
Ellfeld .-- Mayence .-- Heidelberg .-- A Conversation between Vane and the German Student .-- The Ruins of the Castle of Heidelberg and its Solitary Habitant CHAPTER XXX.
No Part of the Earth really Solitary .-- The Song of the Fairies .-- The Sacred Spot .-- The Witch of the Evil Winds .-- The Spell and the Duty of the Fairies CHAPTER XXXI.
Gertrude and Trevylyan, when the former is awakened to the Approach of Death CHAPTER XXXII.
A Spot to be Buried in CHAPTER THE LAST The Conclusion of this Tale THE IDEAL WORLD I.
THE IDEAL WORLD,--ITS REALM IS EVERYWHERE AROUND US; ITS INHABITANTS ARE THE IMMORTAL PERSONIFICATIONS OF ALL BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS; TO THAT WORLD WE ATTAIN BY THE REPOSE OF THE SENSES.
AROUND "this visible diurnal sphere" There floats a World that girds us like the space; On wandering clouds and gliding beams career Its ever-moving murmurous Populace.
There, all the lovelier thoughts conceived below Ascending live, and in celestial shapes.
To that bright World, O Mortal, wouldst thou go?
Bind but thy senses, and thy soul escapes: To care, to sin, to passion close thine eyes; Sleep in the flesh, and see the Dreamland rise! Hark to the gush of golden waterfalls, Or knightly tromps at Archimagian Walls! In the green hush of Dorian Valleys mark The River Maid her amber tresses knitting; When glow-worms twinkle under coverts dark, And silver clouds o'er summer stars are flitting, With jocund elves invade "the Moone's sphere, Or hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear;"* Or, list! what time the roseate urns of dawn Scatter fresh dews, and the first skylark weaves Joy into song, the blithe Arcadian Faun Piping to wood-nymphs under Bromian leaves, While slowly gleaming through the purple glade Come Evian's panther car, and the pale Naxian Maid.
* "Midsummer Night's Dream." Such, O Ideal World, thy habitants! All the fair children of creative creeds, All the lost tribes of Fantasy are thine,-- From antique Saturn in Dodonian haunts, Or Pan's first music waked from shepherd reeds, To the last sprite when Heaven's pale lamps decline, Heard wailing soft along the solemn Rhine.
II.
OUR DREAMS BELONG TO THE IDEAL .-- THE DIVINER LOVE FOR WHICH YOUTH SIGHS NOT ATTAINABLE IN LIFE, BUT THE PURSUIT OF THAT LOVE BEYOND THE WORLD OF THE SENSES PURIFIES THE SOUL AND AWAKES THE GENIUS .-- PETRARCH .-- DANTE.
Thine are the Dreams that pass the Ivory Gates, With prophet shadows haunting poet eyes! Thine the belov'd illusions youth creates From the dim haze of its own happy skies.
In vain we pine; we yearn on earth to win The being of the heart, our boyhood's dream.
The Psyche and the Eros ne'er have been, Save in Olympus, wedded! As a stream Glasses a star, so life the ideal love; Restless the stream below, serene the orb above! Ever the soul the senses shall deceive; Here custom chill, there kinder fate bereave: For mortal lips unmeet eternal vows! And Eden's flowers for Adam's mournful brows! We seek to make the moment's angel guest The household dweller at a human hearth; We chase the bird of Paradise, whose nest Was never found amid the bowers of earth.* * According to a belief in the East, which is associated with one of the loveliest and most familiar of Oriental superstitions, the bird of Paradise is never seen to rest upon the earth, and its nest is never to be found.
Yet loftier joys the vain pursuit may bring, Than sate the senses with the boons of time; The bird of Heaven hath still an upward wing, The steps it lures are still the steps that climb; And in the ascent although the soil be bare, More clear the daylight and more pure the air.
Let Petrarch's heart the human mistress lose, He mourns the Laura but to win the Muse.
Could all the charms which Georgian maids combine Delight the soul of the dark Florentine, Like one chaste dream of childlike Beatrice Awaiting Hell's dark pilgrim in the skies, Snatched from below to be the guide above, And clothe Religion in the form of Love ?* * It is supposed by many of the commentators on Dante, that in the form of his lost Beatrice, who guides him in his Vision of Heaven, he allegorizes Religious Faith.
III.
GENIUS, LIFTING ITS LIFE TO THE IDEAL, BECOMES ITSELF A PURE IDEA: IT MUST COMPREHEND ALL EXISTENCE, ALL HUMAN SINS AND SUFFERINGS; BUT IN COMPREHENDING, IT TRANSMUTES THEM .-- THE POET IN HIS TWO-FOLD BEING,--THE ACTUAL AND THE IDEAL .-- THE INFLUENCE OF GENIUS OVER THE STERNEST REALITIES OF EARTH; OVER OUR PASSIONS; WARS AND SUPERSTITIONS .-- ITS IDENTITY IS WITH HUMAN PROGRESS .-- ITS AGENCY, EVEN WHERE UNACKNOWLEDGED, IS UNIVERSAL.
Oh, thou true Iris! sporting on thy bow Of tears and smiles! Jove's herald, Poetry, Thou reflex image of all joy and woe, _Both_ fused in light by thy dear fantasy! Lo! from the clay how Genius lifts its life, And grows one pure Idea, one calm soul! True, its own clearness must reflect our strife; True, its completeness must comprise our whole; But as the sun transmutes the sullen hues Of marsh-grown vapours into vermeil dyes, And melts them later into twilight dews, Shedding on flowers the baptism of the skies; So glows the Ideal in the air we breathe, So from the fumes of sorrow and of sin, Doth its warm light in rosy colours wreathe Its playful cloudland, storing balms within.
Survey the Poet in his mortal mould, Man, amongst men, descended from his throne! The moth that chased the star now frets the fold, Our cares, our faults, our follies are his own.
Passions as idle, and desires as vain, Vex the wild heart, and dupe the erring brain.
From Freedom's field the recreant Horace flies To kiss the hand by which his country dies; From Mary's grave the mighty Peasant turns, And hoarse with orgies rings the laugh of Burns.
While Rousseau's lips a lackey's vices own,-- Lips that could draw the thunder on a throne! But when from Life the Actual GENIUS springs, When, self-transformed by its own magic rod, It snaps the fetters and expands the wings, And drops the fleshly garb that veiled the god, How the mists vanish as the form ascends! How in its aureole every sunbeam blends! By the Arch-Brightener of Creation seen, How dim the crowns on perishable brows! The snows of Atlas melt beneath the sheen, Through Thebaid caves the rushing splendour flows.
Cimmerian glooms with Asian beams are bright, And Earth reposes in a belt of light.
Now stern as Vengeance shines the awful form, Armed with the bolt and glowing through the storm; Sets the great deeps of human passion free, And whelms the bulwarks that would breast the sea.
Roused by its voice the ghastly Wars arise, Mars reddens earth, the Valkyrs pale the skies; Dim Superstition from her hell escapes, With all her shadowy brood of monster shapes; Here life itself the scowl of Typhon* takes; There Conscience shudders at Alecto's snakes; From Gothic graves at midnight yawning wide, In gory cerements gibbering spectres glide; And where o'er blasted heaths the lightnings flame, Black secret hags "do deeds without a name!" Yet through its direst agencies of awe, Light marks its presence and pervades its law, And, like Orion when the storms are loud, It links creation while it gilds a cloud.
By ruthless Thor, free Thought, frank Honour stand, Fame's grand desire, and zeal for Fatherland.
The grim Religion of Barbarian Fear With some Hereafter still connects the Here, Lifts the gross sense to some spiritual source, And thrones some Jove above the Titan Force, Till, love completing what in awe began, From the rude savage dawns the thoughtful man.
* The gloomy Typhon of Egypt assumes many of the mystic attributes of the Principle of Life which, in the Grecian Apotheosis of the Indian Bacchus, is represented in so genial a character of exuberant joy and everlasting youth.
Then, oh, behold the Glorious comforter! Still bright'ning worlds but gladd'ning now the hearth, Or like the lustre of our nearest star, Fused in the common atmosphere of earth.
It sports like hope upon the captive's chain; Descends in dreams upon the couch of pain; To wonder's realm allures the earnest child; To the chaste love refines the instinct wild; And as in waters the reflected beam, Still where we turn, glides with us up the stream, And while in truth the whole expanse is bright, Yields to each eye its own fond path of light,-- So over life the rays of Genius fall, Give each his track because illuming all.
IV.
FORGIVENESS TO THE ERRORS OF OUR BENEFACTORS.
Hence is that secret pardon we bestow In the true instinct of the grateful heart, Upon the Sons of Song.

The good they do In the clear world of their Uranian art Endures forever; while the evil done In the poor drama of their mortal scene, Is but a passing cloud before the sun; Space hath no record where the mist hath been.
Boots it to us if Shakspeare erred like man?
Why idly question that most mystic life?
Eno' the giver in his gifts to scan; To bless the sheaves with which thy fields are rife, Nor, blundering, guess through what obstructive clay The glorious corn-seed struggled up to day.
V.
THE IDEAL IS NOT CONFINED TO POETS .-- ALGERNON SIDNEY RECOGNIZES HIS IDEAL IN LIBERTY, AND BELIEVES IN ITS TRIUMPH WHERE THE MERE PRACTICAL MAN COULD BEHOLD BUT ITS RUINS; YET LIBERTY IN THIS WORLD MUST EVER BE AN IDEAL, AND THE LAND THAT IT PROMISES CAN BE FOUND BUT IN DEATH.
But not to you alone, O Sons Of Song, The wings that float the loftier airs along.
Whoever lifts us from the dust we are, Beyond the sensual to spiritual goals; Who from the MOMENT and the SELF afar By deathless deeds allures reluctant souls, Gives the warm life to what the Limner draws,-- Plato but thought what godlike Cato was.* Recall the Wars of England's giant-born, Is Elyot's voice, is Hampden's death in vain?
Have all the meteors of the vernal morn But wasted light upon a frozen main?
Where is that child of Carnage, Freedom, flown?
The Sybarite lolls upon the martyr's throne.
Lewd, ribald jests succeed to solemn zeal; And things of silk to Cromwell's men of steel.
Cold are the hosts the tromps of Ireton thrilled, And hushed the senates Vane's large presence filled.
In what strong heart doth the old manhood dwell?
Where art thou, Freedom?
Look! in Sidney's cell! There still as stately stands the living Truth, Smiling on age as it had smiled on youth.
Her forts dismantled, and her shrines o'erthrown, The headsman's block her last dread altar-stone, No sanction left to Reason's vulgar hope, Far from the wrecks expands her prophet's scope.
Millennial morns the tombs of Kedron gild, The hands of saints the glorious walls rebuild,-- Till each foundation garnished with its gem, High o'er Gehenna flames Jerusalem! O thou blood-stained Ideal of the free, Whose breath is heard in clarions,--Liberty! Sublimer for thy grand illusions past, Thou spring'st to Heaven,--Religion at the last.
Alike below, or commonwealths or thrones, Where'er men gather some crushed victim groans; Only in death thy real form we see, All life is bondage,--souls alone are free.
Thus through the waste the wandering Hebrews went, Fire on the march, but cloud upon the tent.
At last on Pisgah see the prophet stand, Before his vision spreads the PROMISED LAND; But where revealed the Canaan to his eye ?-- Upon the mountain he ascends to die.
* What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was .-- POPE.
VI.
YET ALL HAVE TWO ESCAPES INTO THE IDEAL WORLD; NAMELY, MEMORY AND HOPE .-- EXAMPLE OF HOPE IN YOUTH, HOWEVER EXCLUDED FROM ACTION AND DESIRE .-- NAPOLEON'S SON.
Yet whatsoever be our bondage here, All have two portals to the phantom sphere.
What hath not glided through those gates that ope Beyond the Hour, to MEMORY or to HOPE! Give Youth the Garden,--still it soars above, Seeks some far glory, some diviner love.
Place Age amidst the Golgotha,--its eyes Still quit the graves, to rest upon the skies; And while the dust, unheeded, moulders there, Track some lost angel through cerulean air.
Lo! where the Austrian binds, with formal chain, The crownless son of earth's last Charlemagne,-- Him, at whose birth laughed all the violet vales (While yet unfallen stood thy sovereign star, O Lucifer of nations).