O music, sweetest, sublimest ideal of Omniscience, first-born of God, fairest and loftiest Seraph of the celestial hierarchy, Muse of the beautiful, daughter of the Universe!
In the morning of eternity, when the stars were young, her first grand oratorio burst upon raptured Deity, and thrilled the wondering angels; all heaven shouted; ten thousand times ten thousand jeweled harps, ten thousand times ten thousand angel tongues caught up the song; and ever since, through all the golden cycles, its breathing melodies, old as eternity, yet ever new as the flitting hours, have floated on the air of heaven. The Seraph stood, with outstretched wings, on the horizon of heaven—clothed in light, ablaze with gems; and with voice attuned, swept her burning harp strings, and lo! the blue infinite thrilled with her sweetest note. The trembling stars heard it, and flashed their joy from every flaming center. The wheeling orbs that course their paths of light were vibrant with the strain, and pealed it back into the glad ear of God. The far off milky way, bright gulf-stream of astral glories, spanning the ethereal deep, resounded with its harmonies, and the star-dust isles floating in that river of opal, re-echoed the happy chorus from every sparkling strand.
"THE PARADISE OF FOOLS."
Have you ever thought of the wealth that perished when paradise was lost? Have you ever thought of the glory of Eden, the first estate of man? I think it was the very dream of God, glowing with ineffable beauty. I think it was rimmed with blue mountains, from whose moss-covered cliffs leaped a thousand glassy streams that spread out in mid-air, like bridal veils, kissing a thousand rainbows from the sun. I think it was an archipelago of gorgeous colors, flecked with green isles, where the grapevine staggered from tree to tree, as if drunk with the wine of its own purple clusters, where peach, and plum, and blood-red cherries, and every kind of berry, bent bough and bush, and shone like showered drops of ruby and of pearl. I think it was a wilderness of flowers, redolent of eternal spring and pulsing with bird-song, where dappled fawns played on banks of violets, where leopards, peaceful and tame, lounged in copses of magnolias, where harmless tigers lay on snowy beds of lilies, and lions, lazy and gentle, panted in jungles of roses. I think its billowy landscapes were festooned with tangling creepers, bright with perennial bloom, and curtained with sweet-scented groves, where the orange and the pomegranate hung like golden globes and ruddy moons. I think its air was softened with the dreamy haze of perpetual summer; and through its midst there flowed a translucent river, alternately gleaming in its sunshine and darkening in its shadows. And there, in some sweet, dusky bower, fresh from the hand of his Creator, slept Adam, the first of the human race; God-like in form and feature; God-like in all the attributes of mind and soul. No monarch ever slept on softer, sweeter couch, with richer curtains drawn about him. And as he slept, a face and form, half hidden, half revealed, red-lipped, rose-cheeked, white bosomed and with tresses of gold, smiled like an angel from the mirror of his dream; for a moment smiled, and so sweetly, that his heart almost forgot to beat. And while yet this bright vision still haunted his slumber, with tenderest touch an unseen hand lay open the unconscious flesh in his side, and forth from the painless wound a faultless being sprang; a being pure and blithesome as the air; a sinless woman, God's first thought for the happiness of man. I think he wooed her at the waking of the morning. I think he wooed her at noon-tide, down by the riverside, or by the spring in the dell. I think he wooed her at twilight, when the moon silvered the palm tree's feathery plumes, and the stars looked down, and the nightingale sang. And wherever he wooed her, I think the grazing herds left sloping hill and peaceful vale, to listen to the wooing, and thence themselves, departed in pairs. The covies heard it and mated in the fields; the quail wooed his love in the wheat; the robin whistled to his love in the glen;
"The lark was so brim-full of gladness and love,