A DREAM. WELL may sleep present us fictions, Since our waking moments teem With such fanciful convictions As make life itself a dream. Half our daylight faith's a fable; Sleep disports with shadows too, Seeming in their turn as stable As the world we wake to view. Than was left by Phantasy In a bark, methought, lone steering, Sad regrets from past existence Came, like gales of chilling breath; Now seeming more, now less remote, But my soul revived at seeing Ocean, like an emerald spark, Kindle, while an air-dropt being Smiling steered my bark. Heaven-like-yet he looked as human More compassionate than woman, And as some sweet clarion's breath Types not this," I said, " fair spirit! "No," he said, " yon phantom's aspect, Make not, for I overhear Thine unspoken thoughts as clear The close brought tickings of a watch. That's now revolving in thy breast. ""Tis to live again, remeasuring Hast thou felt, poor self-deceiver ! As to wish its fitful fever New begun again? Could experience, ten times thine, 1 Threads by Fate together spun? Could thy flight heaven's lightning shun? 'Scape the myriad shafts of chance. "Would'st thou bear again Love's trouble- Of ambition's prize? Say thy life's new-guided action Flowed from Virtue's fairest springs- Worth itself is but a charter To be mankind's distinguished martyr.' Envying, fearing, hating none, REULLURA*. STAR of the morn and eve, Reullura shone like thee, And well for her might Aodh grieve, Peace to their shades! the pure Culdees Were Albyn's earliests priests of God, * Reullura, in Gaelic. signifies "beautiful star." †The Culdees were the primitive clergy of Scotland, and apparently her only clergy from the sixth to the eleventh century. They were of Irish origin, and their monastery on the island of Iona or Ikolmill, was the seminary of Christianity in North Britain. Presbyterian writers have wished to prove them to have been a sort of Presbyters, strangers to the Roman Church and Episcopacy. It seems to be established that they were not enemies to Episcopacy:-but that they were not slavishly subjected to Rome, like the clergy of later periods, appears by their resisting the Papal ordinances respecting the celibacy of religious men, on which account they were ultimately displaced by the Scottish sovereigns to make way for more Popish canons. Ere yet an island of her seas In Iona preached the word with power, Was the partner of his bower. But, Aodb, the roof lies low, And the thistle-down waves bleaching, And the bat flits to and fro Where the Gael once heard thy preaching; And fall'n in is each columned isle Where the chiefs and the people knelt. Alas, with what visions of awe Her soul in that hour was gifted When pale in the temple and faint, Fame said it once had graced Reullura eyed the statue's face, And cried, "It is, he shall come, "Even he in this very place, For, wo to the Gael people! Ulvfagre is on the main, And Iona shall look from tower and steeple And, dames and daughters, shall all your locks No! some shall have shelter in caves and rocks, And here shall his torch in the temple burn. The waves from Innisfail. His sail is on the deep e'en now, And swells to the southern gale." "Ah! knowest thou not, my bride," The holy Aodh said, "That the saint whose form we stand beside "For the span of his life tenfold extends Beyond the wonted years of men. He sits by the graves of well-loved friends Yet preaching from clime to clime, Ah! but a remnant to deliver: |