Yet 'tis not always thus; sweet slumber steals Across my haggard mind, my weary sight; No more my brain the iron pressure feels, Nor damnéd devils howl the live-long night; Visions of hope and beauty seem To mingle with my darker dream; They bear me back to a long-lost day, To the hours and joys of my boyhood's play, To the merry green, And the sportive scene, And the valley the verdant hills between; And a lovely form with a bright blue eye, Flutters my dazzled vision by; A tear starts up to my wither'd eye, Gods! how I love to feel that tear Trickle my haggard visage o'er! The fountain of hope is not yet dry; I feel as I felt in days of yore, When I roam'd at large in my native glen, Honor'd and lov'd by the sons of men, Till, madden'd to find my home defil'd, I grasp'd the knife, in my frenzy wild, And plunged the blade in my sleeping child! They called me mad--they left me here, To my burning thoughts, and the fiend's despair, Never, ah! never to see again Earth or sky, or sea or plain; Never to hear soft Pity's sigh-- Never to gaze on mortal eye; Doom'd through life, if life it be, To helpless, hopeless misery; Oh, if a single ray of light Had pierced the gloom of this endless night; If the cheerful tones of a single voice Had made the depths of my heart rejoice; If a single thing had loved me here, I ne'er had crouch'd to these fiends' despair! They come again! They tear my brain! They tremble and dart through my every vein! Ho! could I burst this clanking chain, Then might I spring In the hellish ring, And scatter them back to their den again! * * * * * They seize my heart!--they choke my breath! Death?--death! ah, welcome death! _Savannah, (Geo.,) 1837._ R. M. C. FOOTNOTE: [9] ALL who have ever visited the 'ward of the incurables,' in any of the insane asylums of our Atlantic cities, will be forcibly struck with the graphic picture presented in this spirited sketch. EDS. KNICKERBOCKER. OLLAPODIANA. NUMBER XXII.