My merry girl――she drinks――she drinks Faster she drinks and faster, My brain reels round as I see her whirl, She hath turned on her heel with a sudden twirl;―― Wine, wine is a cure for every disaster, For when sorrow wets the eye Yet the heart within is dry, Sweet maid upon the bed she sinks―― May her dreams be light, and her rest be deep! Good angels guard her in her sleep! WILLIAM MAGINN. ―――― THE DREAM, _A Psychological Curiosity_. BY S. T. C. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER. The following “wild and singularly original and beautiful poem” was written at the instigation of Mr. Robert Warren, who was desirous of enrolling me among the number of his panegyrists. The circumstances that lead to its original composition are as follows: I had been considering in what way I might best introduce the subject, when suddenly falling asleep over a provincial newspaper which detailed the battle between Cribb and Molineux, the thoughts of my waking hours assumed the aspect of the present poetical reverie. This to an unidead “reading public” may appear incredible, but minds of imaginative temperament are ever most active during the intervals of repose, as my late poem, entitled “The Pains of Sleep,” will sufficiently attest. Dreams in fact are to be estimated solely in proportion to their wildness; and hence a friend of mine, who is a most magnificent dreamer, imagined but the other night that he invited a flock of sheep to a musical party. Such a _flocci_, nauci, nihili absurdity will, I am afraid, puzzle even our transcendental philosophers to explain, although Kant, in his treatise on the Phænomena of Dreams, is of opinion that the lens or focus of intestinal light ascending the æsophagus at right angles, a juxtaposition of properties takes place, so that the nucleus of the diaphragm reflecting on the cerebellum the prismatic visions of the pilorus, is made to produce that marvellous operation of mind upon matter better known by the name of dreaming.――To such _simple_ and _satisfactory_ reasoning what answer can be made? Ten minutes to ten by Saint Dunstan’s clock, And the owl has awakened the crowing cock: Cock-a-doodle-doo, Cock-a-doodle-doo. If he crows at this rate in so thrilling a note, Jesu Maria! he’ll catch a sore throat.