“‘Blessed art thou for that: thrice blessed,’ then I heard, and since humility is thine, thou art one apt to learn. That which thy own wisdom could not find, thy ignorance confessed shall gain. Come, and see new things.’
“Once more it undulated round me; its lightning wings grew dim; nearer, nearer; till I felt a shock electric,—and nested ’neath its wing.
“We clove the air; passed systems, suns, and moons: what seem from Mardi’s isles, the glow-worm stars.
“By distant fleets of worlds we sped, as voyagers pass far sails at sea, and hail them not. Foam played before them as they darted on; wild music was their wake; and many tracks of sound we crossed, where worlds had sailed before.
“Soon, we gained a point, where a new heaven was seen; whence all our firmament seemed one nebula. Its glories burned like thousand steadfast-flaming lights.
“Here hived the worlds in swarms: and gave forth sweets ineffable.
“We lighted on a ring, circling a space, where mornings seemed forever dawning over worlds unlike.
“‘Here,’ I heard, ‘thou viewest thy Mardi’s Heaven. Herein each world is portioned.’
“As he who climbs to mountain tops pants hard for breath; so panted I for Mardi’s grosser air. But that which caused my flesh to faint, was new vitality to my soul. My eyes swept over all before me. The spheres were plain as villages that dot a landscape. I saw most beauteous forms, yet like our own. Strange sounds I heard of gladness that seemed mixed with sadness:—a low, sweet harmony of both. Else, I know not how to phrase what never man but me e’er heard.
“‘In these blest souls are blent,’ my guide discoursed, ‘far higher thoughts, and sweeter plaints than thine. Rude joy were discord here. And as a sudden shout in thy hushed mountain-passes brings down the awful avalanche; so one note of laughter here, might start some white and silent world.’