4. Come sleep, O sleep! the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe;
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
The impartial judge between the high and low.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

5. Dreams are but interludes, which fancy makes;
When monarch reason sleeps, this mimic wakes;
And many monstrous forms in sleep we see,
Which neither were, nor are, nor e'er can be.

7. When tir'd with vain rotations of the day, Sleep winds us up for the succeeding dawn.

6. Tir'd nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visit pays,
Where fortune smiles-the wretched he forsakes.
YOUNG'S Night Thoughts.

8.

Kind sleep affords

The only boon the wretched mind can feel;
A momentary respite from despair.

DRYDEN.

YOUNG'S Night Thoughts.

9. Oh! thou best comforter of the sad heart,

When fortune's spite assails-come, gentle sleep,
The weary mourner soothe! For well the art

MURPHY.

11. To each and all, a fair good-night,
And rosy dreams, and slumbers light!

Thou know'st in soft forgetfulness to steep
The eyes which sorrow taught to watch and weep.
MRS. TIGHE'S Psyche.

10. Sleep is no servant of the will;
It has caprices of its own:
When courted most it lingers still,
When most pursued 't is swiftly gone.
BOWRING-From the Spanish.

SCOTT.

208

DREAMS-SLEEP.

12. Well may dreams present us fictions, Since our waking moments teem With such fanciful convictions,

As make life itself a dream.

13. Tho' 't is all but a dream at the best, And still when happiest soonest o'er, Yet e'en in a dream to be blest,

Is so sweet that I ask for no more.

CAMPBELL.

:

14. Again in that accustom'd couch must creep,
Where joy subsides, and sorrow sighs to sleep,
And man, o'erlabour'd with his being's strife,
Shrinks to that sweet forgetfulness of life :-
There lie love's feverish hopes, and cunning's guile,
Hate's working brain, and lull'd ambition's wile;
O'er each vain eye oblivion's pinions wave,
And quench'd existence crouches in a grave.

15. My slumbers - if I slumber -are not sleep, But a continuance of enduring thought, Which then I can resist not.

16. I would recall a vision which I dream'd,
Perchance in sleep, for in itself a thought,
A slumb'ring thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

MOORE.

BYRON'S Lara.

BYRON'S Manfred.

BYRON'S Dream.

17. And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and torture, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off our waking toils;
They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity.

BYRON'S Dream.

18. The sweet siesta of a summer's day.

19. Alas! that dreams are only dreams!
That fancy cannot give

A lasting beauty to those forms,
Which scarce a moment live!

20. But ah! 't is gone, 't is gone, and never
Mine such waking bliss can be;
Oh! I would sleep, would sleep for ever,
Could I thus but dream of thee!

BYRON'S Island.

FRISBIE.

21. Where his thoughts on the pinions of fancy shall roam,
And in slumber revisit his love and his home-
When the eyes of affection with tenderness gleam ;—
Oh! who would awake from so blissful a dream?

W. KELLY.

22. When sleep's calm wing is on my brow, And dreams of peace my spirit lull, Before me, like a misty star,

That form floats dim and beautiful.

RUFUS DAWES.

23. Strange is the power of dreams! who has not felt,
When in the morning light such visions melt,
How the veil'd soul, tho' struggling to be free,
Rul'd by that deep, unfathom'd mystery,
Wakes, haunted by the thoughts of good or ill,
Whose shading influence pursues us still?

G. D. PRENTICE.

MRS. NORTON's Dream.

210

1.

DRINKING-WINE, &c.

DRINKING - WINE - TEMPERANCE, &c.

A surfeit of the sweetest things
The deepest loathing to the stomach brings.

2. Oh, that men should put an enemy in

Their mouths, to steal away their brains! that we
Should, with joy, pleasance, revel and applause,
Transform ourselves to beasts!

3. They were red-hot with drinking;

So full of valour, that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces; beat the ground
For kissing of their feet.

6.

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE.

4. Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;
For, in my youth, I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors to my blood;
Nor did I, with unbashful forehead, woo
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty but kindly.

SHAKSPEARE.

5. In what thou eat'st and drinkest, seek from thence Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight;

So thou may'st live till, like ripe fruit, thou drop
Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease
Gather'd, not harshly pluck'd, for death mature.

For swinish gluttony
Ne'er looks to heaven amidst her gorgeous feast,
But with besotted, base ingratitude
Crams, and blasphemes his feeder.

MILTON.

MILTON'S Comus.

7.

8.

9.

If all the world

Should, in a pet of Temperance, feed on pulse,
Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze,
Th' All-Giver would be unthank'd, would be unprais'd,
Not half his riches known, and yet despis'd;
And we should serve him as a grudging master,
And a penurious niggard of his wealth.

MILTON'S Comus.

Nature, good cateress,
Means her provision only to the good,
That live according to her sober laws,
And holy dictates of spare Temperance.

MILTON'S Comus.

The modest maid

But coyly sips, and blushing drinks, abash'd.

10. He, who the rules of temperance neglects, From a good cause may produce vile effects.

SOMERVILE.

11. If men would shun swoln fortune's ruinous blasts, Let them use temperance: nothing violent lasts.

12. The joy which wine can give, like smoky fires, Obscures their sight, whose fancy it inspires.

W. STRACHEY.

- TUKE.

14. Earth's coarsest bread, the garden's humblest roots,
And scarce the summer's luxury of fruits,
His short repast in humbleness supply

With all a hermit's board would scarce deny;
But, while he shuns the grosser joys of sense,
His mind seems nourish'd by that abstinence.

AARON HILL.

13. "Tis to thy rules, O Temperance! that we owe All pleasures that from health and strength can flow. MARY CHANDLER.

BYRON'S Corsair.