A MIDNIGHT RAMBLE. 2 , 



The sleepiest beds in the garden, at least as to the flowers, 

 will be found among the poppies. 



" Not poppy, nor mandragora, 

 Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, 

 Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep 

 Which thou ow'dst yesterday," 



mutters lago to Othello. The poppy, " lord of the land of dreams," 

 sets a beautiful example of that somnolence for which it is itself 

 the emblem and ministering nepenthe. 



In a recent moonlight stroll in Switzerland I visited the 

 poppies in their native haunts, the common wild species whose 

 flaming scarlet sets the foreign summer fields ablaze in the mid- 

 day sun. But I found their fires now smouldering beneath the 

 dew, and giving no token beneath the moon, for the blossoms 

 were closed in luxurious slumber. 



" How many thousand of my poorest subjects 

 Are at this hour asleep !" 



moans Shakespeare's king. 



" O sleep ! O gentle sleep ! 

 Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, 

 That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, 

 And steep my senses in forgetfulness ?" 



What a device of mockery had our midnight poppy proved to 

 this monarch with " uneasy head," who wooed in vain, and even 

 traduced, the "dull god sleep" that should affiliate with the 

 " happy low " and shun " the kingly couch " the " canopies of 

 costly state " in the " perfumed chambers of the great " ! For 

 is not the crowned head of this poppy " pavilioned richer than 

 the proudest king's"? its sleep lulled in its own drowsy incense, in 

 luxurious "perfumed chambers," curtained in canopies of lustrous 

 damask ? 



In the dim moonlight I beheld thousands of these folded 



