THE SEVEN SLEEPERS.

A FRAGMENT.

I.

Is it the sun that opens these dim eyes?
The morning dew that wets this matted hair?—
It is the sun that lights this stony lair-

Awake, my brothers; brothers dear, arise!

Yet sleep ye on, for there is peace in sleep,
When spirits plunge in visions sweet and deep,

Earth-freed and pure, swimming the boundless ocean

Of sunless space, breathing its own clear light—
And such a vision I have dream'd to-night,

Thinking myself a disembodied motion'But now upon the earth again I creep.'

II.

He stretch'd his limbs, for they were stiff and chill;
He strain'd his eyes, and bent his slumbering will
To look upon the day-beam gently peering;
And now he spake with accents most endearing
To his six brothers; but no voice was there,
No low breath linger'd on his anxious ear:
They seem'd as dead; and then a quivering fear
Came over him; his eye look'd up in prayer:
Trembling he felt his younger brother's cheek,
And bow'd himself again, a suppliant meek,
And took the cold hand to his own warm heart,
And kiss'd the pale lips with a love unblenching;-
The pale lips move with a convulsive start,

The fingers cold his feverish flesh are clenching:
He bore him quickly from that cavern darkling
To the green vale where matin beams were sparkling,
The pure air play'd upon his pallid face,

And where the cool transparent brook was dancing,
In that fresh hour of sounds and sweets entrancing,
The youth wak'd up, to meet a brother's blest embrace.

III.

The earth was embroider'd with half-blown flowers,

The grass was wet with night's softest showers,
And the dripping leaves in the sun were glistening
Like the tearful eye of an innocent maid,

To some old fable of sorrow listening,

Where hope still sits on the trenchant blade,
And the crown of true-love is at last display'd.

There were voices of joy in the peaceful wind, As the small birds were twittering each to his kind, 'Midst the tremulous hum of the myriad flies,

And the buz of the golden bee's deep horn;
The sounds of the air, and the tint of the skies,
The mantle of gray over all which lies,

And the odorous breathings of that fresh morn,
Were life and delight to each gentle brother,
As they gazed in speechless love at each other.

IV.

These were delights of high and solemn tone;
But dim as dreams of long-forgotten things,
Or like the mystic veil by fancy thrown
O'er some abstracted soul, musing alone,
Till earth, and air, and the star-spangled zone,
Seem but the work of his imaginings.

Their eyes drank in the gentle sun-beam slanting
Down the thick covert with a light enchanting,
The music of the air their voices hushing,
With a persuasive and o'erpowering spell:
But, even as the playful brook was gushing
To the far river, did their spirits well

To their deep tendency; their earthly feeling
Was lost in what their sleep had been revealing.

V.

• Brother, the first beams of the day
Were wont to call us up to pray;
The birds are singing God's high praise,
'The very flowers a breath do raise
Of incense to His holy power;

Brother, it is all nature's hour

' Of orison.' And so they knelt them down
In the green temple of that sunny vale,
And bade their Lord and glorious Maker hail,
And ask'd of their pure faith the blessed crown
Promis'd by Him that died upon the cross:
And, as they knelt upon the springing moss,
They look'd again upon that beauteous scene;

The mist had fled before their simple prayers:
The brook, the trees, the flowers, were then, I ween,
Clear written notes of what themselves had been,
Haunts of their early faith, memorials of their cares.

VI.

Yet, since those brothers knelt upon that soil,
Or heard that fountain's low, romantic coil,

Or saw the pine-wood sleeping in the sun,
There had been many a weary year outspun.
Since there the holy Seven had trod
To muse the praises of their God,
Two hundred garbs of greenery
The Spring had given to field and tree;
Two hundred icy shrouds and pale
Had Winter spread along that vale;
Crumbled was many a fane and sturdy tower,
Ramparts of war and shrines of kingly fame,
Ashes and dust was many a dome of power,
But yet the hills and vallies look'd the same.

VII.

O vital Spirit of nature, thou alone

Givest a perdurable garment to this earth,
And thou sitt'st momently smiling at the birth
Of myriad forms of life, that thou hast known
Before the first day broke! eternal forms,
That not the parching sun, nor scattering storms,
Nor winter's ice can change. Proud cities fall,
Time hides them with his black funereal pall,
Languages die, and many a scheme of pride

Leaves but the slime that marks the reptile's way;
But streams, that in the sedgy vallies play,-
Flowers of delight, in leafy nooks that hide,-
Trees, that in kissing clumps or forests bide,

And the soft gales in their green mantles fold,—
Mountains, below whose heads the winds are roll'd,-

And seas, that heave with an undying tide,

These are for all time,' uttering words of truth,
Love, joy, and wisdom, in their ceaseless youth.

VIII.

And yet they gaz'd:-they look'd upon that place
As lovers, meeting after tedious years,
Scan the chang'd lineaments of each dear face,
And vainly seek the freshness and the grace
That mantled once in eyes, undimm'd by tears.
And yet they gaz'd: that hollow leafless trunk
Was unremember'd; the precipitous hill
Had lost its ancient pathways; and the rill
Into a deeper bed of earth had sunk:-

They wonder'd, yet they spake not. There's a voice, Not unfamiliar, on their silence breaking;

We come we join you-let our souls rejoice

Hark to the blest hymn of our brothers' waking:'-

Away to that snug nook; for the thick shower
Rushes on stridingly. Ay, now it comes,
Glancing about the leaves with its first drips,
Like snatches of faint music. Joyous thrush,
It mingles with thy song, and beats soft time
To thy bubbling shrillness. Now it louder falls,
Pattering, like the far voice of leaping rills;
And now it breaks upon the shrinking clumps
With a crash of many sounds-the thrush is still.
There are sweet scents about us; the violet hides
On that green bank; the primrose sparkles there :
The earth is grateful to the teeming clouds,
And yields a sudden freshness to their kisses.
But now the shower slopes to the warm west,
Leaving a dewy track; and see, the big drops,
Like falling pearls, glisten in the sunny mist.
The air is clear again, and the far woods
Shine out in their early green. Let's onward then,
For the first blossoms peep about our path,
The lambs are nibbling the short dripping grass,
And the birds are on the bushes.

S. T

AMIOT'S LETTERS FROM FRANCE.

MY DEAR

I.

Paris, Rue du Mont-Thabor, 11th August.

I have such a heap of things to say that I don't know how to begin. Admirations, disquisitions, indignations, excusations, accusations, and absolutions, press for an utterance. You are well acquainted with my opinion of the inutility of attempting to describe, as that term is usually understood; because it is in fact impracticable in execution, and would be quite superflous if it were not so. Galignani's guide book is very copious and well written, and you shall have the use of it. But there are some things, and those by far the most important to the minds of some persons, which a guide book does not, and cannot, take notice of; and those are the things, if I mistake not, which will most amuse you all; I mean an account of my own adventures, my own notions, my own reflections. These, if not intrinsically valuable, are at least original.

We left Calais at ten by the market clock on Wednesday morning; and commend me to the cabriolet of the Calais Diligence for comfortable travelling in summer! It is simply a covered gig where our box is. The conducteur, or guard, sits with you; you avoid sun and dust; at night a curtain is drawn across the front, and you may sleep just as if you were lolling inside a gentleman's carriage. There is nothing like it in an English coach. And then what a subject for inexhaustible divertisement is submitted to your attention in the postilion and his team! I had often heard of the French postilions and their horses; I knew they wore tails and jackboots, and were caparisoned (that is the horses were) with ropes; but the individual particulars convey no notion of the complex image. The fellow at Calais was a dandy, and his boots were not much more than twice the size of those of the Oxford Bluesand had been cleaned; but as we left the coast, the tail descended, and the boot increased, and the Day and Martin was all my eye; till, at about forty miles from Paris, the whole thing attained its legitimate acmé, and I declare, positively, that a creature of five feet nothing, with legs and thighs like a forked radish, with