Through yonder casement I discern a family circle -- the grandmother , the parents and the children -- all flickering , shadow-like , in the glow of a wood-fire . -- Bluster , fierce blast , and beat , thou wintry rain , against the window-panes ! Ye can not damp the enjoyment of that fireside . -- Surely my fate is hard that I should be wandering homeless here , taking to my bosom night and storm and solitude instead of wife and children . Peace , murmurer ! Doubt not that darker guests are sitting round the hearth , though the warm blaze hides all but blissful images . Well , here is still a brighter scene -- a stately mansion illuminated for a ball , with cut-glass chandeliers and alabaster lamps in every room , and sunny landscapes hanging round the walls . See ! a coach has stopped , whence emerges a slender beauty who , canopied by two umbrellas , glides within the portal and vanishes amid lightsome thrills of music . Will she ever feel the night-wind and the rain ? Perhaps -- perhaps ! And will Death and Sorrow ever enter that proud mansion ? As surely as the dancers will be gay within its halls to-night . Such thoughts sadden yet satisfy my heart , for they teach me that the poor man in this mean , weatherbeaten hovel , without a fire to cheer him , may call the rich his brother -- brethren by Sorrow , who must be an inmate of both their households ; brethren by Death , who will lead them both to other homes . Onward , still onward , I plunge into the night . Now have I reached the utmost limits of the town , where the last lamp struggles feebly with the darkness like the farthest star that stands sentinel on the borders of uncreated space . It is strange what sensations of sublimity may spring from a very humble source . Such are suggested by this hollow roar of a subterranean cataract where the mighty stream of a kennel precipitates itself beneath an iron grate and is seen no more on earth . Listen a while to its voice of mystery , and Fancy will magnify it till you start and smile at the illusion . And now another sound -- the rumbling of wheels as the mail-coach , outward bound , rolls heavily off the pavements and splashes through the mud and water of the road .
All XXXXX long the poor passengers will be tossed to and fro between drowsy watch and troubled sleep , and will dream of their own quiet beds and awake to find themselves still jolting onward .
cataract fire mail-coach murmurer night storm sublimity to-night window-panes wood-fire