Chapter LXXI

Sleep, from its capturing power over the brain, is called "kinsman to death and trance and madness;" and is here acknowledged as affording

"A night-long Present of the Past,"

by reviving in a dream of the night a tour they had made together "thro' summer France."

The Poet asks that, if sleep has "such credit with the soul," as to produce this temporary illusion; it may be farther extended by giving him a stronger opiate, so as to make his pleasure complete, in prolonging this renewal of their pedestrian tour, and reviving other cherished associations.

This reference to their foreign excursion recalls the charming verses, "In the Valley of Cauteretz," which evidently relate to their being together during this happy holiday:

"All along the valley, stream that flashest white,
Deepening thy voice with the deepening of the night,
All along the valley, where thy waters flow,
I walk'd with one I loved two-and-thirty years ago.
All along the valley, while I walk'd to-day,
The two-and-thirty years were a mist that rolls away;
For all along the valley, down thy rocky bed,
Thy living voice to me was as the voice of the dead,
And all along the valley, by rock and cave and tree,
The voice of the dead was a living voice to me."