Creation sometimes pours into the spiritual eye the radiance of heaven. The green mountains that glimmer in a summer gloaming from the dusky yet bloomy east; the moon opening her golden eye, or walking in brightness among innumerable islands of light, not only thrill the optic nerve, but shed a mild, a grateful, an unearthly lustre into the inmost spirits, and seem the interchanging twilight of that peaceful country, where there is no sorrow and no night. After all, I doubt not but there must be the study of this creation, as well as art and vision; tho' I cannot think it other than the veil of heaven, through which her divine features are dimly smiling; the setting of the table before the feast; the symphony before the tune; the prologue of the drama, a dream of antepast and proscenium of eternity.
Samuel Palmer, 1828
Letters, ed. Raymond Lister. Oxford, 1974. Vol. 1, p. 50
Letters, ed. Raymond Lister. Oxford, 1974. Vol. 1, p. 50
