On a rough winter's night, when the stormy winds blew,
'Till the tiles from the top of my lone dwelling flew.
And against my frail lattice came pouring amain,
The big, hurrying drops of the storm-driven rain,
I sat all alone, by a log fire bright,
Heading page after page, with increasing delight—
For my soul was enthrall'd by the stern poet's spell—
Of Dante's appalling depiction of hell ;
But, aweary at last of the terrible theme,
I fell fast asleep, and I had a strange dream.

I dreamt that there came to my old easy chair
A being of beauty surpassingly rare,
Whose radiant form enraptur'd my sight
As she stood in the midst of a halo of light;
For the beams of her eyes were as bright and as mild,
As the beams of pure joy in the eyes of a child ;
And her tresses descended, in raven-hu'd rings,
O'er the folds of her robes and the plumes of her wings ;
While on a gemm'd fillet, her temples around,
In letters of gold, on a bright azure ground.
This beautiful legend of charity ran :—
'Each man should be kind to his own fellow man.'
And she said in a voice, whose sweet silvery sound
Twere a joy to have followed, the wide world around—
' Come, leave for awhile your old easy arm chair.
And follow me on through the regions of air ;
And scenes yo.u shall see near the place where you dwell,
As absorbing as are the sad tales poets tell.
Then, drawing me near to her radiant form,
She bore me away through the wild, raging storm—
O'er cottage and homestead, forest and plain,
And across a broad stream near an ivy-clad fane.
Where it foam'd up and chaf d with a passionate motion,
At the bridge that impeded its course to the ocean ;
And o'er the cold graves of the churchyard lone,
And the meadows and valleys with water o'erflown.
Then, rapidly gliding along, we went
O'er a rich man's domain, of a wide extent,
Where the tall pines bent down to the pitiless gale,
As it hurried along with a dismal wail,
And made in the oaks as deafening a roar.
As the raging waves make on a rock-bounded shore ;
And whilst lost in amaze that so pelting a storm.
Should not affect me, or ray guide's fragile form,
I found myself placed in a brilliant room.
On a rich carpet wove in an apt Turkish loom,
Where on ottoman, couch, and on deftly-carv'd chair,
Were seated the wealthy, the gay, and the fair.
Whose bright forms shone back from the mirrors tall.
That, glittering, hung on the tapestried wall.
While their ears were regal'd with a beautiful lay
That told of true love in a land far away.
When away the last notes of the sweet song had died,
In a sorrowful voice thus began my fair guide—
'I have wafted you here to show you the way
In which owners of wealth oft unthinkingly play
Their own pleasant parts in the drama of life,
While want and affiction around them are rife.
These gentlemen brave, and these ladies fair.
Have just left a board on which viands most rare
Were spread in a manner most lavishly vain ;
For the vineyards of France, and the valleys of Spain,
The sea and the homestead, the forest and field,
Their produce to grace it were all made to yield ;
And now here, where all is most brilliant and bright,
Away they will pass the remains of the night.
With music and song, and sweet social glee.
While their hearts from all sorrow and care are free ;
And they have not a thought of the want and the woe
That exist in the homes of the village below.
But their joys will be dy'd with a guilt-tinted stain
While such want and such woe shall unheeded remain.'
Then she drew me again near her radiant form.
And bore me away through the pitiless storm ;
And, as quick as a prayer mounts up to God's throne,
Or His mercy to penitent sinners is shown,
I was wafted away to a cold, cheerless room,
Where all was misery, soyrow, and gloom,
Where a wretched man lay on a bed of pain,
And a wile to console him was trying in vain ;
While a grate without fire, and a rushlight pale.
Of the bitterest want were proclaiming a tale.
'The sick man who lies there ' said my beautiful guide,
'With none of a sick man's needs supplied,
Spent the prime of his life in tilling the soil
Of rich men, who paid ill for his wearisome toil,
While they dwelt in such homes as I show'd you to-night—
Where all was most beautiful, joyous, and bright ;
And now sickness and pain have his arms unnerv'd,
He is left as you see by those whom he serv'd.
Then over his pallet she hovering flew,
While his life's latest breath in deep anguish he drew ;
And his agoniz'd wife, in alarm and dismay,
Bent, sorrowing, over his soulless clay.'
'He is dead?' she exclaim'd, with a soul-searching scream
That ended at once both my sleep and my dream.
But I shall not have dreamt, or have told it, in vain.
If it move but one heart to alleviate pain.