Tardy of aid, unseal thy heavy eyes, "Awake, and with the dawning day arise: "Take to the western gate thy ready way,

"For by that passage they my corpse convey:

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My corpse is in a tumbril laid, among

"The filth and ordure, and inclosed with dung:
"That cart arrest, and raise a common cry;
"For sacred hunger of my gold, I die :"-
Then shew'd his grisly wound; and last he drew
A piteous sigh, and took a long adieu.

The frighted friend arose by break of day,
And found the stall where late his fellow lay.
Then of his impious host inquiring more,

Was answer'd that his guest was gone before:

Muttering, he went," said he, " by morning light, "And much complain'd of his ill rest by night."

This raised suspicion in the pilgrim's mind;
Because all hosts are of an evil kind;

And oft, to share the spoils, with robbers join'd.

His dream confirm'd his thought; with troubled look,
Straight to the western gate his way he took;
There, as his dream foretold, a cart he found,
That carried compost forth to dung the ground.

This, when the pilgrim saw, he stretch'd his throat,
And cried out" murder!"-with a yelling note.

My murder'd fellow in this cart lies dead,
Vengeance and justice on the villain's head.
Ye magistrates, who sacred laws dispense,
On you I call, to punish this offence.

The word thus given, within a little space,
The mob came roaring out, and throng'd the place ;
All in a trice they cast the cart to ground,

And in the dung the murder'd body found;

Though breathless, warm, and reeking, from the wound.
Good heaven, whose darling attribute, we find,
Is boundless grace, and mercy to mankind,
Abhors the cruel: and the deeds of night
By wondrous ways reveals in open light;
Murder may pass unpunish'd for a time,
But tardy justice will o'ertake the crime.
And oft a speedier pain the guilty feels:

The hue and cry of heaven pursues him at the heels.

Fresh from the fact, as in the

The criminals are seized upon

present case,

the place:

Carter and host confronted face to face.

Stiff in denial, as the law appoints,

On engines they distend their tortured joints:

So was confession forced, th' offence was known,

And public justice on th' offenders done.

X

"Here may you see, that visions are to dread; "And, in the page that follows this, I read,"

-Of two young merchants, whom the hope of gain

Induced in partnership to cross the main:

Waiting till willing winds their sails supplied,

Within a trading town they long abide,

Full fairly situate on a haven's side;

One evening it befel, that, looking out,

The wind they long had wish'd was come about:
Well pleased they went to rest; and if the gale
Till morn continued, both resolved to sail.
But, as together in a bed they lay,

The younger had a dream at break of day.

A man, he thought, stood frowning at his side;
Who warn'd him for his safety to provide,
Nor put to sea, but safe on shore abide.

—"I come, thy genius, to command thy stay ;
"Trust not the winds, for fatal is the day,
"And death, unhoped, attends the watery way.

The vision said: and vanish'd from his sight:
The dreamer waken'd in a mortal fright:
Then pull'd his drowsy neighbour, and declared
What, in his slumber, he had seen and heard ;

His friend smiled scornful, and with proud contempt Rejects, as idle, what his fellow dreamt.

Stay, who will stay; for me no fears restrain, "Who follow Mercury, the god of gain ;

"Let each man do as to his fancy seems, "I wait not, I, till you have better dreams. "Dreams are but interludes which fancy makes; “When monarch reason sleeps, this mimic wakes:

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Compounds a medley of disjointed things,

"A mob of coblers, and a court of kings:

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Light fumes are merry, grosser fumes are sad : "Both are the reasonable soul run mad;

"And many monstrous forms in sleep we see, "That neither were, nor are, nor e'er can be. "Sometimes forgotten things, long cast behind, "Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind. "The nurse's legends are for truths received, "And the man dreams but what the boy believed.

"Sometimes we but rehearse a former play, "The night restores our actions done by day; "As hounds in sleep will open for their prey. "In short, the farce of dreams is of a piece,

"Chimeras all, and more absurd or less:

You, who believe in tales, abide alone;

"Whate'er I get this voyage

is

my own.

Thus while he spoke, he heard the shouting crew That call'd aboard, and took his last adieu.

The vessel went before a merry gale,

sail :

And, for quick passage, put on every
But when least fear'd, and e'en in open day,
The mischief overtook her in the way:
Whether she sprung a leak, I cannot find,
Or whether she was overset with wind,
Or that some rock below her bottom rent;
But down at once, with all her crew, she went :
Her fellow ships from far, her loss descried;
But only she was sunk, and all were safe beside,