Methought that Glo'ster stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.
O Lord! methought what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!
What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men, that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea.
Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept
(As 'twere in scorn of eyes,) reflecting gems,
That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.
And often did I strive
To yield the ghost; but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To seek the empty, vast, and wand'ring air :
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
-My dream was lengthened after life;
O, then began the tempest to my soul!
I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger soul,
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick,
Who cry'd aloud,-What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence ?
And so he vanish'd: Then came wand'ring by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood: and he shriek'd out aloud,-
Clarence is come, false, fleeting, perjur'd Cla-
That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury ;
Seize on him, furies, take him to your torments! With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears ! Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise, I tremblingly wak'd, and, for a season after, Could not believe but that I was in hell; Such terrible impression made my dream.
While o'er my limbs sleep's soft dominion spread, What though my soul fantastic measures trod O'er fairy fields; or mourn'd along the gloom Of pathless woods; or down the craggy steep Hurl'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool; Or scal'd the cliff or danc'd on hollow winds, With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain? Her ceaseless flight, though devious, speaks her na
Of subtler essence than the trodden clod;
For human weal, heaven husbands all events,
Dull sleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain.
YOUNG.
DREAM. (The Soldier's)
Our bugles sang truce, for the night cloud had lower'd, And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower'd, The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die. When reposing that night on my pallet of straw, By the wolf-scaring faggot that guarded the slain ; At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And thrice e'er the morning I dreamt it again. Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array, Far, far I had roam'd on a desolate track: 'Twas autumn-and sunshine arose on the way To the home of my fathers, that welcom'd me back.
I flew to the pleasant fields, travers'd so oft
In life's morning march, when my bosom was young;
I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers
Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore, From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kiss'd me a thousand times o'er,
And my wife sobb'd aloud in her fulness of heart. Stay, stay with us-rest, thou art weary and worn; And fain was their war-broken soldier to stayBut sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn, And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away. CAMPBELL.
Our waking dreams are fatal: how I dreamt
Of things impossible! (could sleep do more?)
Of joys perpetual in perpetual change!
Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave!
Eternal sunshine in the storms of life!
How richly were my noon-tide trances hung
With gorgeous tapestries of pictur'd joys!
Joy behind joy, in endless perspective!
Till at Death's toll, whose restless iron tongue
Calls daily for his millions at a meal,
Starting, I woke, and found myself undone !
Where now my frenzy's pompous furniture!
The cobwebb'd cottage with its ragged wall
Of mould'ring mud, is royalty to me!
The spider's thread is cable to man's tie
On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.
Frequent and full, the dry divan
Close in firm circle; and set, ardent, in
For serious drinking. Nor evasion sly,
Nor sober shift, is to the puking wretch
Indulg'd apart; but earnest, brimming bowls
Lave every soul, the table floating round,
And pavement, faithless to the fuddled foot.
Thus as they swim in mutual swill, the talk,
Vociferous at once from twenty tongues,
Reels fast from theme to theme; from horses,
hounds,
To church or mistress, politics or ghost,
In endless mazes, intricate, perplex'd.
Meantime, with sudden interruption, loud,
Th' impatient catch bursts from the joyous heart;
That moment touch'd is every kindred soul;
And, opening in a full-mouth'd cry of joy,
The laugh, the slap, the jocund curse go round; While, from their slumbers shook, the kennel'd hounds
Mix in the music of the day again.
As when the tempest, that has vex'd the deep
The dark night long, with fainter murmurs falls;
So gradual sinks their mirth. Their feeble tongues,
Unable to take up the cumbrous word,
Lie quite dissolv❜'d. Before their maudlin eyes,
Seen dim, and blue, the double tapers dance,
Like the sun wading through the misty sky.
Then, sliding soft, they drop.
Confus'd above,
Glasses and bottles, pipes and gazetteers,
As if the table ev'n itself was drunk,
Lie a wet broken scene; and wide, below,
Is heap'd the social slaughter: where astride
The lubber Power in filthy triumph sits,
Slumbrous, inclining still from side to side,
And steeps them drench'd in potent sleep till morn.
Perhaps some doctor, of tremendous paunch,
Awful and deep, a black abyss of drink,
Outlives them all; and from his buried flock
Retiring, full of rumination sad,
Laments the weakness of these latter times.
Struck by the pow'rful charm, the gloom dissolves
In empty air; Elysium opens round.
A pleasing frenzy buoys the lighten'd soul,
And sanguine hopes dispel your fleeting care;
And what was difficult and what was dire,
Yields to your prowess and superior stars :
The happiest you of all that e'er were mad,
Or are, or shall be, could this folly last.
But soon your heaven is gone; a heavier gloom Shuts o'er your head: and, as the thund'ring stream,
Swoln o'er its banks with sudden mountain rain,
Sinks from its tumult to a silent brook;
So, when the frantic raptures in your breast
Subside, you languish into mortal man:
You sleep, and waking find yourself undone.
For, prodigal of life, in one rash night
You lavish'd more than might support three days.
A heavy morning comes; your cares return
With tenfold rage. An anxious stomach well
May be endur'd; so may the throbbing heart;
But such a dim delirium, such a dream,
Involves you; such a dastardly despair
Unmans your soul, as madd'ning Pentheus felt
When, baited round Citharon's cruel sides,
He saw two suns, and double Thebes, ascend.-
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