afie of the distillers, by which some dram-drinkers have been
suddenly killed. One pint of water, distilled from fourteen pounds of
black cherry stones bruised, has the same deleterious effect,
destroying as suddenly as laurel-water. It is probable Apricot-kernels,
Peach-leaves, Walnut-leaves, and whatever possesses the kernel-flavour,
may have similar qualities.]

Contending hosts and trembling nations wait
The firm immutable behests of Fate;
--She speaks in thunder from her golden throne
50 With words _unwill'd_, and wisdom not her own.

So on his NIGHTMARE through the evening fog
Flits the squab Fiend o'er fen, and lake, and bog;
Seeks some love-wilder'd Maid with sleep oppress'd,
Alights, and grinning fits upon her breast.
55 --Such as of late amid the murky sky
Was mark'd by FUSELI'S poetic eye;
Whose daring tints, with SHAKESPEAR'S happiest grace,
Gave to the airy phantom form and place.--
Back o'er her pillow sinks her blushing head,
60 Her snow-white limbs hang helpless from the bed;
While with quick sighs, and suffocative breath,
Her interrupted heart-pulse swims in death.
--Then shrieks of captured towns, and widows' tears,
Pale lovers stretch'd upon their blood-stain'd biers,
65 The headlong precipice that thwarts her flight,
The trackless desert, the cold starless night,
And stern-eye'd Murder with his knife behind,
In dread succession agonize her mind.
O'er her fair limbs convulsive tremors fleet,
70 Start in her hands, and struggle in her feet;
In vain to scream with quivering lips she tries,
And strains in palsy'd lids her tremulous eyes;
In vain she _wills_ to run, fly, swim, walk, creep;
The WILL presides not in the bower of SLEEP.
75 --On her fair bosom sits the Demon-Ape
Erect, and balances his bloated shape;

[_The Will presides not._ 1. 74. Sleep consists in the abolition of all
voluntary power, both over our muscular motions and our ideas; for we
neither walk nor reason in sleep. But, at the same time, many of our
muscular motions, and many of our ideas, continue to be excited into
action in consequence of internal irritations and of internal sensations;
for the heart and arteries continue to beat, and we experience variety
of passions, and even hunger and thirst in our dreams. He