Now, stripped of all illusive veil or haze, Each object looms remote, distinct, apart: We know its worth, its limits, weight and ways; It is no longer one with our own heart; No answering ecstasy Is roused in us by earth or sea or sky. Who will affirm this brave display is real, When on a radiant morn the doom is sent That rends our world asunder, and we feel The dear, familiar earth, the firmament, All forms that meet the eye, An insubstantial, vacant mockery? A cobweb world of thin, transparent shapes, Though limp as silk, the magic woof proves wrought Stronger than steel: no outlets, no escapes Ope to the struggling spirit, trapped and caught. Prisoned in walls of glass, She sees beyond them, but she may not pass. Though comfort grows thereafter, nevermore The bond then snapped, the passionate young faith, Can healing years with all their gifts restore. From Psyche's wings life's rude and careless breath Hath dashed the purple dust, And with it died the rapture and the trust. EMMA LAZARUS. * * * * * OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. A SLEEPING-CAR SERENADE. Not long ago I had to travel by the night-express from Montreal to New York, and feeling drowsy about eleven o'clock, presented my claim for a lower berth in the car paradoxically designated "sleeping," and tantalizingly named "palace," with sanguine hopes of obtaining a refreshing snooze. Knowing from experience the aberrations of mind peculiar to travelers roused from sleep, by which they are impelled to get off at way-stations, I secured my traps against the contingencies liable to unchecked baggage, and creeping into the back of the sepulchral shelf called a bed, I enveloped myself after the fashion of Indian squaws and Egyptian mummies, and fell asleep. I do not know whether the noise and concussion of the cars excite the same sort of dreams in every one's cranium as they do in mine, but they almost invariably produce in my brain mental phenomena of a pugnacious character, which are nothing modified by palace cars and steel rails. This particular night there was a perfect revelry of dreams in my brain. I was on the frontier with our corps, engaged in a glorious hand-to-hand conflict with men our equals in number and valor. We were having the best of it, giving it to them hot and heavy, crash! through the beggars' skulls, and plunge! into their abominable abdominal regions. "No quarter!" It was a pity, but it seemed splendid.