We were conscious of something lovelier than we saw;
a world not to be discerned by sight, but real and unspeakably
beautiful to the soul. Even to Caliban the isle was "full of noises;"
"sounds and sweet airs that give delight" did not escape his brutish
sense. Sometimes "a thousand twangling instruments" hummed about his
ears; sometimes voices whose soft music was akin to sleep floated about
him; and sometimes the clouds "would open and show riches ready to drop
upon" him. There was a sweet enchantment in the air to which the
dullest could not be indifferent. It hovered over us like some finer
beauty, just beyond the vision of sense, and yet as real, almost as
tangible, as the things we touched and saw.
Alone as we were upon the little island, we felt the diviner world of
which that tiny bit of earth was part; we knew the higher beauty of
which all that visible loveliness was but a sign and symbol. The song
of the sea, breathed from we knew not what depths of space, was not
more real than this melody, haunting the island and dropping from the
air like blossoms from a ripening tree. Turn where we would, this
music went with us; it mingled with the murmur of the trees; it blended
with the limpid note of the rivulet; it melted with the breeze that
swept across the grassy places.
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