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488 Recollections of a Night of Fever. [May, 
Softly, softly breathe, my lyre, 
Stilling every wild desire ! 
Let thy music fall as sweet 
~ On the anxious, listening ear, 
As the odours to the sense 
When the summer’s close is near. 
More soft! more slow! 
The measure flow! 
Softer, slower yet! 
Till the sweet sound beget 
A joy that melts like woe. 
I listened, and wept! Oh, the unutterable luxury of those tears! 
They worked upon my burning brain as the long-withheld dews fall 
upon the dry and rifted earth. The fever of my blood was stilled, and 
the air seemed to blow so coolly upon my parched cheeks! A sense of 
enjoyment stole over me, calm as the breath of a summer’s evening, but 
vivid beyond the power of words to paint it. 
The sounds of that wild strain came fainter and fainter ; the fairy 
forms waxed dim ; my eyes grew heavier ; I slept. 
The morning awakened me ; it was not till the sun had been up for 
many hours; but when it did break my long slumber, it found me far 
other than it had left me on the preceding day. Then I was dying ; 
now the dangerous crisis was past. Then I had neither eyes, nor ears, 
nor indeed any other sense, for pleasure ; now the sight of the blue sky 
alone, seen through the window as I lay in bed, was a source of infinite 
delight. Even the poor old nurse, who, in the hours of the night, had 
been so hateful to me, was, in my altered mood, a kind, officious crea- 
ture, whose happy face had in it as little as could be well conceived of 
the night-hag. By-the-by, the good old creature, half-laughing, half- 
crying, reproached me with having beaten her in my delirium. This, 
if ttue—and I much fear it was—must have been when she brought me 
the medicine, and my overwrought fancy represented her as conspiring 
with the shadowy men of the hammer to poison me. Nor have I the least 
doubt, if it were worth while, that all my visions might in the same way 
be traced to some existing or foregone reality. 
THE SAINT. 
“ Mihi sit propositum in taberna mori, 
« Deus sit propitius huie potatori.” 
Sarr Dan was a saint, with as saintly a face 
As e’er played the sinner, or poached for a place ; 
*T was delicious to hear him “ improve” upon hell! 
And at love-feasts, and so forth, he bore off the bell ; 
The ladies all vowed him an exquisite man: 
In short, of all saints, the prime saint was Saint Dan. 
Six days in the week he at banquets harangued, 
Six times on the “ Sabbath” old Satan was banged ; 
His tricks were out-tricked, his skin done to a toast, 
Till all the world knew that Saint Dan ruled the roast, 
And pronounced that Old Nick must soon alter his plan: 
In short never saint snubbed the devil like Saint Dan. 
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