What a singular moment is the first one , when you have hardly begun to recollect yourself , after starting from midnight slumber ! By unclosing your eyes so suddenly you seem to have surprised the personages of your dream in full convocation round your bed , and catch one broad glance at them before they can flit into obscurity . Or , to vary the metaphor , you find yourself for a single instant wide awake in that realm of illusions whither sleep has been the passport , and behold its ghostly inhabitants and wondrous scenery with a perception of their strangeness such as you never attain while the dream is undisturbed . The distant sound of a church-clock is borne faintly on the wind . You question with yourself , half seriously , whether it has stolen to your waking ear from some gray tower that stood within the precincts of your dream . While yet in suspense another clock flings its heavy clang over the slumbering town with so full and distinct a sound , and such a long murmur in the neighboring air , that you are certain it must proceed from the steeple at the nearest corner ; You count the strokes -- one , two ; and there they cease with a booming sound like the gathering of a third stroke within the bell . If you could choose an hour of wakefulness out of the whole night , it would be this . Since your sober bedtime , at eleven , you have had rest enough to take off the pressure of yesterday 's fatigue , while before you , till the sun comes from `` Far Cathay '' to brighten your window , there is almost the space of a summer night -- one hour to be spent in thought with the mind 's eye half shut , and two in pleasant dreams , and two in that strangest of enjoyments the forgetfulness alike of joy and woe . The moment of rising belongs to another period of time , and appears so distant that the plunge out of a warm bed into the frosty air can not yet be anticipated with dismay . Yesterday has already vanished among the shadows of the past ; to-morrow has not yet emerged from the future . You have found an intermediate space where the business of life does not intrude , where the passing moment lingers and becomes truly the present ; a spot where Father Time , when he thinks nobody is watching him , sits down by the wayside to take breath . Oh that he would fall asleep and let mortals live on without growing older ! Hitherto you have lain perfectly still , because the slightest motion would dissipate the fragments of your slumber . Now , being irrevocably awake , you peep through the half-drawn window-curtain , and observe that the glass is ornamented with fanciful devices in frost-work , and that each pane presents something like a frozen dream . There will be time enough to trace out the analogy while waiting the summons to breakfast . Seen through the clear portion of the glass where the silvery mountain-peaks of the frost-scenery do not ascend , the most conspicuous object is the steeple , the white spire of which directs you to the wintry lustre of the firmament . You may almost distinguish the figures on the clock that has just told the hour . Such a frosty sky and the snow-covered roofs and the long vista of the frozen street , all white , and the distant water hardened into rock , might make you shiver even under four blankets and a woollen comforter . Yet look at that one glorious star ! Its beams are distinguishable from all the rest , and actually cast the shadow of the casement on the bed with a radiance of deeper hue than moonlight , though not so accurate an outline .
You sink down and muffle your head XXXXX the clothes , shivering all the while , but less from bodily chill than the bare idea of a polar atmosphere .
If among at for in on though whether while within