to pass: reflex of one solitude--prefiguration of another.

O burden of solitude, that cleavest to man through every stage of his
being! in his birth, which _has_ been--in his life, which _is_--in his
death, which _shall_ be--mighty and essential solitude! that wast, and
art, and art to be; thou broodest, like the Spirit of God moving upon the
surface of the deeps, over every heart that sleeps in the nurseries of
Christendom. Like the vast laboratory of the air, which, seeming to be
nothing, or less than the shadow of a shade, hides within itself the
principles of all things, solitude for the meditating child is the
Agrippa's mirror of the unseen universe. Deep is the solitude of
millions who, with hearts welling forth love, have none to love them.
Deep is the solitude of those who, under secret griefs, have none to pity
them. Deep is the solitude of those who, fighting with doubts
or darkness, have none to counsel them. But deeper than the deepest
of these solitudes is that which broods over childhood under the passion
of sorrow--bringing before it, at intervals, the final solitude which
watches for it, and is waiting for it within the gates of death. O mighty
and essential solitude, that wast, and art, and art to be, thy kingdom is
made perfect in the grave; but even over those that keep watch outside
the grave, like myself, an infant of six years old, thou stretchest out a
sceptre of fascination.

* * * * *

DREAM ECHOES OF THESE INFANT EXPERIENCES.

[_Notice to the reader_.--The sun, in rising or setting, would produce
little effect if he were defrauded of his rays and their infinite
reverberations. "Seen through a fog," says Sara Coleridge, the noble