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    the Comforter ! " A swimming in the brain , a gathering and creeping of the blood from the extremities to the centre now followed , as if those regions had grown too cold for its fleet transports . And , as from my lips broke one lingering , delicious murmur of the soft swoon , a joyous gush of sunshine fell on the

    path that lay before me—a path which mortal foot had never trodden—of bright and burning gold , margined on either side by a beautiful and ample sweep of rich , deep , emerald sward ; a very foretaste of Paradise . The air was reeking with the delicious aroma that rose from shrubs and flowers fringing the wayside ; and the ear was lulled by the bubble of the many springs

    that leaped up at every footstep , and , now lost to eye and ear , wandered , like fairy music , on their silvery eccentric way . And it seemed as if the rush and spring-time of youth had come again ; there was a nerve and vitality in every pore ; my ear was attuned to the nicest shades of harmony , and my soul trembled into emotion at touch , sound , colours .

    Ni g ht came ; and I was in the midst of a mighty forest ; and a solitary star shone over head . The black boughs of the colossal sycamore , and the cypress and cedar , interlaced and tangled , made a dark cathedral-like avenue of many leagues , and the gloomy splendour of their shades , shutting out the light of that solitary star , filled my soul with ineffable and trembling awe * So appalling was the stillness of these shades , that my

    footsteps on the fallen leaves were like the marching of an army ; so painful and startling the silence that , as I paused for a moment , I could hear the breathing of the grasshoppers;—ay , the very thoughts travelling in my brain were audible . It was a silence as of earth , yet not of earth , but the hushed calm of an eternal gloom .

    Darker and darker grew the path , and more than once I felt my heart die within me , and my limbs fail ; but an imperious power , an overwhelming and inexplicable impulse , a vague and undefined suspense , as of a mighty something unfulfilled , together with the whisper within—* ' On ! and accomplish ! " upheld me , and I continued my way . A weary time was it , I ween . At length I emerged from this

    " valley of the shadow of death " forest , and the clear sky shone overhead . But my way was not the less fearful and dreary . Sometimes a break of landscapes of a gorgeous and dreamy splendour would fill me with hope for a short space ; but again came many many leagues so utterly bleak and desolate , that to gaze on might sadden the heart of a seraph . I felt my spirit wither and fade , and sat me down on a rock on the borders of a

    lake—the Lake Desolate—and listened to the dirge-music of the far-coming , many-toned , many-tempered wind , sweeping and creeping over and among the long dark grass and quivering

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    The Opium-Trance . 641

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1836, page 641, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2662/page/53/