ORIGINAL POETRY.

DREAMS.

Aut quæ sopitos deludunt Somnia sensus.

DARKNESS was thick around me, as of old,
In Egypt, it was felt. No glimmering lamp,
Nor solitary star-light found its way

Through the dim shadows that encompassed me;
But all was waste and void,—a desolation
Without a form or voice,-a deathlike silence,
Where even the waters had forgot to flow,
And winds to whisper,-such a total silence,
My breathing startled me, although I held it
In fear and awe. The heavens had vanished then,
And earth was gone, only the foothold, where
I stood and dared not move,-in like suspense,
As when upon a mountain crag, a mist
Sweeps suddenly around the hunter's path,
And hides the precipice and dread descent,
Where all is death, he pauses, and awaits
The passing of the vapour, till it rolls
Its heavy wreaths around the glacier heights,
And all at once reveals the dark abyss
Below him, where he hung close on the verge,
And knew not of his danger; such a fear
And wild suspense held me, and then I stood
Waiting for morning, while the laggard hours
Seemed lengthened out to ages. Who has felt
The sickening doubt, the cold uncertainty,
The dying of all hope, when we have seen
Day after day pass on, and yet no sight,
No tidings of the expected happiness,
On which our being rested, we had fixed it
So deeply in our hearts; he only knows

How much I suffered in those long, dull hours,
That heavily dragged on, and brought no dawn,
No token of it;-still the same blank void
Closed me, and narrowed to a sepulchre's
Scant compass, all the universe to me;
And left me nothing but to count my pulses,

And tell my hours by throbs. The air seemed thick
And deathly, and a sense of suffocation

Pressed on me, like a mountain's weight, and bore me

Seemingly down a gulf, from which I struggled
To lift me; but the ever backward plunge
Hurried me, like the rushing of a torrent,
Farther and farther from all hope of light
Or the sweet face of Heaven. O! had a star,

A single lonely star, one of the smallest,
That scarcely twinkles, when the winter's night
Is clearest, and there is no moon to shade
The lesser lights; and the bright evening planet
Has set, and Jove not mounted yet his throne,
And made his vassels dim ;-had such a star
Broke out a moment, from the thick obscure,
To tell me where to look upon the sky,
And, in that utter void, forget not where
To wait the dawning, I had then had hope,
And not been wholly desolate; and yet
None greeted me, but all was like a chaos,
After its waves have settled to a calm,

And even the swell, that follows on the storm,
Subsided into stillness.

Then, methought,

I heard a sound, like the far roar of winds
Amid the forest oaks, when the whole sea
Of branches tosses, as the coming tempest
Stoops from its car of clouds, and scourges them,
Till the wide wilderness bows to the dust

Before its anger. Such a hollow sound
Rolled onward, and yet louder every moment,
Seemed like the rush of myriad wings, or sweep
Of mailed horsemen, when the beaten plain
Trembles, and, in the mid encounter, wide
Their armour shocks and rings. A breathless fear,
A terror that had winged my flying feet,

Had not the deeper dread of what I knew not
Beyond the point I stood on, held me fixed

And rooted to the ground, and with it, too,

A mingled feeling of desire and hope,

Wakened me from my trance, and turned me whence
The rushing came. Methought the darkness seemed
To fade, and from its womb a glimmering rose

Pale and uncertain, as the flitting glance
Of moonlight through a storm. Anon it took
More fixedness, and then it reared itself
Into a dreamy shape, a wavering form,
Hovering in mist far on the sleeping waves,

When night is deep, and all the light in heaven
Just gives a visible outline, so that earth
Seems like a land of shadows. Then it stood
Before me, and a chill and spectral glare
Invested it, and as it onward drew,
With ominous bearing, I could dimly catch
Traces of human likeness, yet it seemed
More like a moon-struck ghost, than living thing,
For there was not a motion in its limbs,
Gesture, or step, but it seemed borne along
On the swift tide of air-its glaring eyeballs
Rolled not, and had no meaning, but they stared,
Like a blind statue's, with everted lids,
Glassy and cold; and from its bloodless lips
There seemed to come no voice, for they were still,
And yet stood open, like the last fixed gasp
Of dissolution. Soon the vision neared me,
And then I heard a low and muttering sound,
Like the faint utterance of forbidden charms,
When, even herself in fear, the sorceress

Evokes the shades of hell, or calls the spirits,
Whose dwelling is in air. Then as I heard it,
I started and looked round me; for no breath
Quivered upon those ashy lips, and yet

I knew the voice came from them, and it sounded
Hollow, as from the tomb. "Creature of earth,
Child of despair and fear, of doubt and madness,
I bid thee follow me; the spell is on thee,
And where I go, thou must perforce attend me;
And I will show thee such unearthly things,
As will not leave thee to thy dying day,

But haunt thee, like the secret consciousness

Of undiscovered crime." He said; and then

Turned from me, and went moving through the darkness, Lofty and proud. At once I felt myself

Lifted, as by the sweeping of a tempest,

And borne along so rapidly, my breath

And sense were lost. Awhile I knew of nothing,
But that my flight was onward; then my brain
Grew wonted to the change, and fixed itself,
So that all objects took a startling clearness,
Though seen in deepest shade. A magic world
Seemed bursting into being, wondrous, wild,
Majestic, beautiful, obscure, and dark,
Then bright to dazzling. Countless images
Crowded before me, till the eye was weary

In looking onward through the living sea,
That rolled upon me, like the toppling waves
Heaved from the womb of ocean, surge on surge,
To burst upon the shore. I hurried by them,
And back they rushed behind me, like the hills,
And groves, and towns, and spires, when borne along
The bosom of some mighty stream by winds
That send the vessel through the frothy waves,
Like a shaft winged with fate. It were a tale
Too high for mortal utterance, to tell

The shapes that met me, and they ravished me
With such unearthly joy, the vision melted
In its own fervour, and I found myself
Alone in darkness.

P.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

The Works of Anna Lætitia Barbauld. With a Memoir by LUCY AIKIN. In two volumes. 1826. 12mo. pp. 324 and 372.

THIS very neat edition of Mrs Barbauld's Works, lately published in New York, contains most of the pieces found in the last English edition, together with those of a new volume, entitled "A Legacy for Young Ladies," first published this year in London, and, of course, never before offered to readers in this country. Mrs Barbauld's writings, except the Legacy for Young Ladies, which has been prepared for publication by Miss Aikin since the author's death, have been often before the American public in different forms, and are two well known to require any analysis or exposition of their character from us. We hope and believe, moreover, that they are too highly appreciated to derive any advantage from our praise. We cannot, however, omit the opportunity now offered to us, of bearing testimony to the peculiar excellence of all that Mrs Barbauld has ever written, with the design to subserve the purposes of early education. Possessed of a discriminating mind, and having been herself a long time devoted to the duties of a teacher, she was singularly qualified, both by nature and by habit, to do justice to a subject in which she took so lively an interest.

Lest our readers should not all of them have an opportunity to study Mrs Barbauld's writings on education, we will quote a paragraph or two, which we think are particularly striking. Speaking of the utter impotence of precepts where they are constantly vio

lated by the preceptors themselves, and their influence counteracted by every thing that surrounds the little learner, she says, addressing herself more particularly to parents:

You are sensible of the advantages of simplicity of diet; and you make a point of restricting that of your child to the plainest food, for you are resolved that he shall not be nice. But this plain food is of the choicest quality, prepared by your own cook; his fruit is ripened from your walls; his cloth, his glasses, all the accompaniments of the table, are such as are only met with in families of opulence: the very servants who attend him are neat, well dressed, and have a certain air of fashion. You may call this simplicity; but I say he will be nice, for it is a kind of simplicity which only wealth can attain to, and which will subject him to be disgusted at all common tables. Besides, he will from time to time partake of those delicacies which your table abounds with; you yourself will give him of them occasionally; you would be unkind if you did not: your servants, if good-natured, will do the same. Do you think you can keep the full stream of luxury running by his lips, and he not taste it? Vain imagination!

I would not be understood to inveigh against wealth, or against the enjoyments of it; they are real enjoyments, and allied to many elegancies in manners and in taste;-I only wish to prevent unprofitable pains and inconsistent expectations.

You are sensible of the benefit of early rising; and you may, if you please, make it a point that your daughter shall retire with her governess, and your son with his tutor, at the hour when you are preparing to see company. But their sleep, in the first place, will not be so sweet and undisturbed amidst the rattle of carriages, and the glare of tapers glancing through the rooms, as that of the village child in his quiet cottage, protected by silence and darkness; and, moreover, you may depend upon it, that as the coercive power of education is laid aside, they will in a few months slide into the habitudes of the rest of the family, whose hours are determined by their company and situation in life. You have, however, done good as far as it goes; it is something gained, to defer pernicious habits, if we cannot prevent them.

These thoughts may help to dissipate the wonder, which many seem to feel, that children do not more dutifully follow good advice; and, perhaps, prevent parents from charging human nature with much perversity, when the fault of it is almost wholly their own. On the other hand, speaking of the influence of example, Mrs Barbauld says:

Do we see a father who is diligent in his profession, domestic in his habits, whose house is the resort of well-informed, intelligent peoplea mother whose time is usefully filled, whose attention to her duties secures esteem, and whose amiable manners attract affection? Do not be solicitous, respectable couple, about the moral education of your offspring! do not be uneasy because you cannot surround them with the apparatus of books and systems; or fancy you must retire from the world to devote yourselves to their improvement. In your world they are brought up much better than they could be under any plan of factitious education which you could provide for them: they will imbibe 25

VOL. IV.