To the hearer’s eye appear,
The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror’s career—
The dying Mede, his shaftless, broken bow;
The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear;
Mountains above, earth’s, ocean’s plain below;
Death in the front, destruction in the rear!
It is this quality of the imagination which gives old countries their superior attractions when compared with new soils. At the sight of battle-fields, religious houses, cathedrals, castles, either in ruins or otherwise, we are pleased in calling up a crowd of shadows from the dust, and finding a sort of mysterious companionship with them during our passing reveries.
Campbell says very well, that distance lends enchantment to the view, and it is generally true of the human mind that it regards the past with a feeling of tenderness—a disposition to make the best of it. There is a certain charm in Time, whom we regard as the dominator of us all; and the ruins or remnants of any thing speak an impressive warning of our own evanescent fate. That belief in the good old times is an instinct too strong for the philosophy of most of us. We have a thousand proofs that they were rude, bad, ignorant times. But the poetry of our nature will not be reasoned with, and we believe with the bard—
Not rough or barren are the winding ways
Of hoar Antiquity, but strewn with flowers.