Oxford, from the Chapel Tower-Night.

"The very houses seem asleep,

And all that mighty heart is lying still."-WORDSWORTH.

PEACE, Silence, Slumber, triple crown of Night,
Circle the Queen-like city. Dim the shower
Of moonbeams falls on every hoary tower,

And steeps each gabled roof in silver light.
Hush'd is the latest shout of revel rite

Through the gray quadrangle; while faintly gleams
The lamp of some pale student o'er the dreams
Of Plato, or old Homer's sounding fight.
Forth from below the mass superior stand
The tall, gaunt steeples, like a faithful guard,
Oh! may it be so, keeping watch and ward
Above the weary world fast lock'd in sleep.

Hark! even now their voices through the band Pass on their hourly signal, clear and deep!

Sleep.

"Dulcis et alta quies, placidæque simillima morti."
VIRGIL, En. vi. 522.

"It is that death by which we may literally be said to die daily; a death which Adam died before his mortality; a death whereby we live a middle and moderating point between death and life. In fine, so like death I dare not trust it without prayers, and an half adieu unto the world, and take my farewell in a colloquy with God."-Religio Medici.

Nor with the fumes oppress'd of wine drunk deep,
The spirits with long revelry half mad,
Nor from foul satiated passion sad,

Enter the portal of Death's semblance, Sleep;
For 'tis a solemn temple. Ye who keep
Therein the Soul's high holiday, come clad

In purity; above your fellows glad;

The World's dust from feet unsandled sweep,

your

And approach leaning on the staff of Prayer.

Then, pausing in the shadowy aisle, recall

Calmly the day just closed; bless friend and foe;
Your last thoughts let your God and Mother share,
Till slumbers lightly on your senses fall,
Soothing as organ-swells; as soft and slow.

Dreams.

"We are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps; and the slumber of the body seems but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason."-SIR T. BROWN.

Εννοήσατε δὲ, ἔφη, ὅτι ἐγγύτερον μὲν τῷ ἀνθρωπίνῳ θανάτῳ οὐδέν ἐστίν ὕπνου· ἡδε τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ψυχὴ τότε δήπου θειοτάτη καταφαίνεται, καὶ τότε τῶν μελλόντων, προορᾷ, τότε γὰρ, ὡς ἔοικε, μάλιστα ἐλευθεροῦται.

XEN. Cyropædeia, lib. viii. c. 7.*

SLEEP! I did call thee the Soul's holiday;
For then she mounts, freed from each grosser sense,
To somewhat of divine intelligence;

Foresees the Future, clear as springs of Day;
Acts o'er the Past, feeling perchance the sway
Of former being; sweeps o'er space immense;
And runs through changeful years' experience
In an eye's twinkling; like the King who lay
Spell-bound, his front plung'd in the magic bowl.
Then doth she wander loosen'd from control,
What time the body lies a corpse-like clay,
Foreshadowing forth, darkly, as through a glass,
Her kind immortal, when the World shall pass
From the material form, with breath away.

* See a very remarkable passage in the Republic of Plato, lib. ix. c. 1 (translated also by Cicero, De Divinatione, lib. i. c. 29), in which Socrates asserts an opinion that tranquil and veracious dreams can be secured by observing a temperate regimen of body, and exercising the mind in healthy trains of thought before committing ourselves to sleep.

The Churchyard-On the Death

of H

"Nemo tam divos habuit faventes,
Crastinum ut possit sibi polliceri."

SENECA, In Thyeste.

Οδ ̓ ἄρτι θάλλων σάρκα διοπέτης ὅπως
"Aσrnρ άπέσẞn.-EURIPID. Fragm.

I SAW thee, thou chief favourite of us all,
In thy bright garb, and cheerful as the Morn,
Vault on thy steed, to follow hounds and horn;
Watch'd thy last wav'd adieu; heard thy last call.
I saw thee next, in the dim even-fall,

By rustics, on a bloody wattle borne,

Thy shrouded, pale cold corse mangled and torn.
Oh! what an undefined and shadowy pall
Of sorrow fell on our young hearts :—amazed,

In gather'd groups, around thy door we stay'd,

As though thou might'st come forth in thy old mirth:

A few days' pause, and once again I gaz'd,

The last time and the saddest, on thee laid

By thy companions in this hallow'd earth.

[Poor H, the most joyous among us, and the greatest favourite with all, was killed by a fall out hunting. He lies buried in Merton churchyard.]

The Passing Bell.

"Let not a death unwept, unhonoured, be
The melancholy fate allotted me."-SOLON.

SWEET relic of old time, the passing bell,
Scarce wakes a mournful echo in this breast;
It speaks to me of those who sink to rest

With fix'd on gaze

the eyes they loved so well;

Into whose ears the Gospel comfort fell,

Breath'd by God's minister: whose hands were prest,
And temples kiss'd by Love: whose last request

Was sigh'd not to the stranger: such the knell
Strikes on this exiled bosom !

Once I wept

A youth in Ganges drown'd: once, one who died
Lone, fever-smitten, by the jungle side;

Many who fell when war o'er India swept;
Most, him who pass'd away from us at sea.-

Oh! may the passing bell be toll'd for me!