The following Vision was originally printed as the ninth book of JOAN of ARC. It is now adapted to the improved edition of that Poem.

THE VISION

of

THE MAID OF ORLEANS.

THE FIRST BOOK.

Orleans was hush'd in sleep. Stretch'd on her couch The delegated Maiden lay: with toil

Exhausted and sore anguish, soon she closed

Her heavy eye-lids; not reposing then,

For busy Phantasy, in other scenes

Awakened. Whether that superior powers,

By wise permission, prompt the midnight dream, Instructing so the passive* faculty;

*May fays of Serapis,

Erudit at placide humanam per somnia mentem,
Nocturnâque quiete docet; nulloque labore
Hic tantum parta est pretiosa scientia, nullo

Or that the soul, escaped its fleshly clog,
Flies free, and soars amid the invisible world,

And all things are that * seem.

Excutitur studio verum.

Mortalia corda

Tunc Deus iste docet, cum sunt minus apta doceri,
Cum nullum obsequium præstant, meritisque fatentur
Nil sese debere suis; tunc recta scientes

Cum nil scire valent. Non illo tempore sensus
Humanos forsan dignatur numen inire,

Cum propriis possunt per se discursibus uti,
Ne forte humanâ ratio divina coiret.

Sup Lucani. * I have met with a singular tale to illustrate this spiritual theory of dreams.

Guntram, King of the Franks, was liberal to the poor, and he himself experienced the wonderful effects of divine liberality. For one day as he was hunting in a forest he was separated from his companions and arrived at a little stream of water with only one comrade of tried and approved fidelity. Here he found himself opprest by drowsiness, and reclining his head upon the servant's lap went to sleep. The servant witnessed a wonderful thing, for he saw a little beast (bestiolam) creep out of the mouth of his sleeping master, and go immediately to the streamlet, which it vainly attempted to cross. The servant drew his sword and laid it

Along a moor,

Barren, and wide, and drear, and desolate,
She roam'd a wanderer thro' the cheerless night.

across the water, over which the little beast easily past and crept into a hole of a mountain on the opposite side; from whence it made its appearance again in an hour, and returned by the same means into the King's mouth. The King then awakened, and told his companion that he had dreamt that he was arrived upon the bank of an immense river, which he had crossed by a bridge of iron, and from thence came to a mountain in which a great quantity of gold was concealed. When the King had concluded, the servant related what he had beheld, and they both went to examine the mountain, where upon digging they discovered an immense weight of gold.

I stumbled upon this tale in a book entitled SPHINX Theologico-Philosophica. Authore Johanne Heidfeldio, Ecclesiaste Ebersbachiano. 1621.

The same story is in Matthew of Westminster; it is added that Guntram applied the treasures thus found to pious uses. For the truth of this theory there is the evidence of a Monkish miracle. When Thurcillus was about to follow St. Julian and visit the world of souls, his guide said to him, "let thy body rest in the bed for thy spirit only is about to depart