A DREAM.
Loud howl'd the storm of Winter's ire
As pensive by my evening fire,
Thought, long involv'd in reverie deep,
Sank wearied in the arms of sleep.
—Methought a rushing wing swept by,
And hoary Time himself stood nigh
Who scythe and hour-glass casting down,
And smiling thro' a wrinkled frown,
A tube display'd, whose power sublime
Could bring before the eye
Past ages, and remotest climes
With graphic imagery.
Some distant land I sought to see
When the last century shone,
Ere the blest Gospel's ministry
On mission-wings had flown:
And through that tube my glance he led
Where northern seas their limits spread,
Where the rough ice-berg shocks the pole,
And wintry midnight chains the soul.
There in a subterranean cell
Her watch a Greenland mother kept,
And while the lamp's faint radiance fell,
Over her dying infant wept.
But when beneath the snowy mound
Its narrow, noteless grave was found,
Wild were her shrieks of woe severe,
No voice from Heaven, her pangs to cheer.
