Such songs do good; and a peculiar blessing seems to attend every composition, in prose or verse, which inculcates good moral sentiments, or tends to strengthen our virtuous resolutions.  This fine song, I feel assured, will live embalmed in the memory of mankind long after the sickly, affected, and unnatural ditties of its author have gone to their merited oblivion.  Sometimes, however, in spite of my good resolutions, when left alone, the dark clouds of despondency would close around me, and I could not help contrasting the happy past in our life with my gloomy anticipations of the future.  Sleep, which should bring comfort and refreshment, often only aggravated my painful regrets, by recalling scenes which had nearly escaped my waking memory.  In such a mood the following verses were written:—­

OH, LET ME SLEEP!

  Oh, let me sleep! nor wake to sadness
  The heart that, sleeping, dreams of gladness;
  For sleep is death, without the pain—­
  Then wake me not to life again. 
  Oh, let me sleep! nor break the spell
  That soothes the captive in his cell;
  That bursts his chains, and sets him free,
  To revel in his liberty.

  Loved scenes, array’d in tenderest hue,
  Now rise in beauty to my view;
  And long-lost friends around me stand,
  Or, smiling, grasp my willing hand. 
  Again I seek my island home;
  Along the silent bays I roam,
  Or, seated on the rocky shore,
  I hear the angry surges roar.

  And oh, how sweet the music seems
  I’ve heard amid my blissful dreams! 
  But of the sadly pleasing strains,
  Nought save the thrilling sense remains. 
  Those sounds so loved in scenes so dear,
  Still—­still they murmur in my ear: 
  But sleep alone can bless the sight
  With forms that face with morning’s light.

J.W.D.M.

CHAPTER XIV

A JOURNEY TO THE WOODS

  ’Tis well for us poor denizens of earth
  That God conceals the future from our gaze;
  Or Hope, the blessed watcher on Life’s tower,
  Would fold her wings, and on the dreary waste
  Close the bright eye that through the murky clouds
  Of blank Despair still sees the glorious sun.

It was a bright frosty morning when I bade adieu to the farm, the birthplace of my little Agnes, who, nestled beneath my cloak, was sweetly sleeping on my knee, unconscious of the long journey before us into the wilderness.  The sun had not as yet risen.  Anxious to get to our place of destination before dark, we started as early as we could.  Our own fine team had been sold the day before for forty pounds; and one of our neighbours, a Mr. D—–­, was to convey us and our household goods to Douro for the sum of twenty dollars.  During the week he had made several journeys, with furniture and stores; and all that now remained was to be conveyed to the woods in two large lumber sleighs, one driven by himself, the other by a younger brother.