If my passions were dead, the souls of
the passions, those essential mysteries of the spirit which had imbodied
themselves in the passions, and had given to them all their glory and
wonderment, yet lived, yet glowed, with a pure, undying fire. They rose
above their vanishing earthly garments, and disclosed themselves angels
of light. But oh, how beautiful beyond the old form! I lay thus for
a time, and lived as it were an unradiating existence; my soul a
motionless lake, that received all things and gave nothing back;
satisfied in still contemplation, and spiritual consciousness.

Ere long, they bore me to my grave. Never tired child lay down in his
white bed, and heard the sound of his playthings being laid aside for
the night, with a more luxurious satisfaction of repose than I knew,
when I felt the coffin settle on the firm earth, and heard the sound of
the falling mould upon its lid. It has not the same hollow rattle within
the coffin, that it sends up to the edge of the grave. They buried me
in no graveyard. They loved me too much for that, I thank them; but they
laid me in the grounds of their own castle, amid many trees; where, as
it was spring-time, were growing primroses, and blue-bells, and all the
families of the woods

Now that I lay in her bosom, the whole earth, and each of her many
births, was as a body to me, at my will. I seemed to feel the great
heart of the mother beating into mine, and feeding me with her own life,
her own essential being and nature. I heard the footsteps of my friends
above, and they sent a thrill through my heart. I knew that the helpers
had gone, and that the knight and the lady remained, and spoke low,
gentle, tearful words of him who lay beneath the yet wounded sod. I rose
into a single large primrose that grew by the edge of the grave,
and from the window of its humble, trusting face, looked full in the
countenance of the lady. I felt that I could manifest myself in the
primrose; that it said a part of what I wanted to say; just as in the
old time, I had used to betake myself to a song for the same end. The
flower caught her eye. She stooped and plucked it, saying, "Oh, you
beautiful creature!" and, lightly kissing it, put it in her bosom. It
was the first kiss she had ever given me. But the flower soon began to
wither, and I forsook it.