Ere one ruddy streak of light
Glimmer'd o'er the distant height,
Kindling with its living beam
Frowning wood and
Cold grey stream,
I awoke with sudden start,
Clammy brow and beating heart,
Trembling limbs, convulsed and chill,
Conscious of some mighty ill;
Yet unable to recall
Sights that did my sense appal;
Sounds that thrill'd my sleeping ear
With unutterable fear;
Forms that to my sleeping eye
Presented some strange phantasy -
Shadowy, spectral, and sublime,
That glance upon the sons of time
At moments when the mind, o'erwrought,
Yields reason to mysterious thought,
And night and solitude in vain
Bind the free spirit in their chain.
Such the vision wild that press'd
On tortur'd brain and heaving chest;
But sight and sound alike are gone,
I woke, and found myself alone;
With choking sob and stifled scream
To bless my God 'twas but a dream!
To smooth my damp and stiffen'd hair,
And murmur out the Saviour's prayer -
The first to grateful memory brought,
The first a gentle mother taught,
When, bending o'er her children's bed,
She bade good angels guard my head;
Then paused, with tearful eyes, and smiled
On the calm slumbers of her child -
As God himself had heard her prayer,
And holy angels worshipped there.
CHAPTER XVII
OUR LOGGING-BEE
There was a man in our town,
In our town, in our town -
There was a man in our town,
He made a logging-bee;
And he bought lots of whiskey,
To make the loggers frisky -
To make the loggers frisky
At his logging-bee.
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