vision which steals with heavenly influence on my solitary musings? Oh, if there be, speak, my Elizabeth, and I will try to curb my _waking_ thoughts, and turn imploringly to _sleep_ for the precious imagery which perhaps my day-light dreams ought not to mingle. Sleep! balmy Sleep! thy poppies shed A pitying respite on my woes; Bind on thy charm around my head, And lull my soul to calm repose! Yet not those slumbers I implore, That steep the brain in Lethe's wave, Tho' such the weary sense restore, 'Tis not this lifeless boon I crave! I woo thee with thy world of dreams, That o'er the mind in vision play Thro' mimic shades--by airy streams Where phantom Hope delights to stray. Now gorgon Reason sinks to rest, And Fancy, with unchartered range, Soars to the regions of the bless'd; The transit neither hard, nor strange. How radiant the etherial light! Credulity, companion kind, Has spread her wing to join the flight-- The spirit's dungeon left behind. Borne upward to the glorious sky, Crowds of celestial beings throng; Whose brighter, more inquiring eye, Is that which beams their ranks among? 'Twas his!--no more--the vision's past! Hark! is that sound the funeral bell? Raptures too vivid cannot last-- That dream is but a broken spell! There are days so sad, and feelings so overwhelming, that to make war against their flow is as fruitless as to oppose a barrier to the sea. Forgive me. _You_ are not one of the unskilful comforters who attempt to impart consolation by checking the tide of sorrow. _You_ understand better the nature of the human heart, and are aware that a little kind sympathy is the truest balm which friendship can bestow. I will now impart to you some circumstances which have weighed upon spirits, at _best_ so tremblingly poised, that the slightest addition to their usual burthen destroys the balance. As I mentioned to you, my excursion to Killarney was, in itself, a great effort. _Such_ scenery, and sweet music, are the most powerful exciters, in my mind, to a train of association which I dread in company. Memory is so acutely painful, from the minuteness with which its traces are engraved, and the fidelity of its pictures, that I fly from whatever is likely to unlock the stores, and present to my view _much_ that I dare not contemplate, unless I am alone. The delight, however, of gratifying my dear children overcame every other consideration: and I accompanied a party composed of admirable materials, but too numerous and too gay for me. I had not been long from home before I felt myself, for the first time, involved in those cares which, as my children grow up, I must expect to encounter.