'Twas a calm and soft evening when Miss Pilton left Williamsburg, and, ere we parted, I extorted from her unsuspicious feelings a promise that she would write to me. Day had languished itself into night, when I found myself a solitary loiterer in the noiseless grove which skirted the city. The wind sobbed through the dreary and desolate silence of the forest, and when I looked up to the twinkling and radiant light which blazes in a starry sky of Virginia, the innate piety of Nature almost chastened me into repentance. How vain is that feeble wisdom which impotently labors to read those mute and living oracles of God? yet who, in searching into them, docs not feel that his heart is kindled into enthusiasm, by their wild and spiritual eloquence. May not each bright and dazzling star whose lambent fire dances over the cloudless sky be the abode of spirits enjoying a realm of mind--of philosophers who rived the adamant of vulgar error--of patriots who offered their blood at the shrine of their country--of those who opened a vista for freedom through the gloom of tyranny--and of the poet who, fettered to the earth, boldly anticipated a foretaste of his eternal home, in some earthly, yet beautiful and rapturous dream? THETA. THE DREAM. I. I dreamed a dream--and still upon my mind The image of that dream, on Memory's page Inscribed in letters large and legible, Rests vivid as the lightning's scathing flash. Beneath a spreading oak, that towered high And lone upon a hillock's grassy plot, A Maiden stood--and by her side a Youth, Whose summers did, tho' few, outnumber hers; And _she_ was beautiful as rainbow tints-- Her voice, like sweetest music borne upon The bosom of some gentle breeze far o'er The hushed and silent waters of the deep-- Her breath, like fragrant odors from the lap Of Flora sent, when Morning's blush appears-- Her heart, the home where wild affections dwelt-- Her mind, of intellectual power the seat-- Her eye, the mirror to her speaking soul! Upon her marble brow was set the seal Of _Dignity_--and in her slender form Were blended grace and perfect symmetry. The Youth was tall, erect--but unlike her In all things save affection's swelling tide: Unknowing of the bright and quenchless fire, At Beauty's altar lit, that constant burned Within his bosom's deep recess, the world Had deemed him changeful as the fitful wind. Silent they were, and round them silence reigned: Above, the clear blue ether spread her veil, And by them swept the gentle, fresh'ning breeze That cooled the burning temples of the one, The flowing tresses of the other waved. Beneath them was a wide spread plain, o'er which The full Moon poured her streams of silver light, And in a flood of glory bathed both plain And rugged cliffs that wildly rose beyond. Upon that lovely scene the maiden looked That joy and stillness breathed into her heart;