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 night 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 . Happier my lot , who will straightway hie me to my familiar room and toast myself comfortably before the fire , musing and fitfully dozing and fancying a strangeness in such sights as all may see . But first let me gaze at this solitary figure who comes hitherward with a tin lantern which throws the circular pattern of its punched holes on the ground about him . He passes fearlessly into the unknown gloom , whither I will not follow him . This figure shall supply me with a moral wherewith , for lack of a more appropriate one , I may wind up my sketch . He fears not to tread the dreary path before him , because his lantern , which was kindled at the fireside of his home , will light him back to that same fireside again .
And thus we , night-wanderers through a stormy and dismal world , if we bear the lamp of Faith enkindled at a celestial fire , it will surely XXXXX us home to that heaven whence its radiance was borrowed .
cheer dream enter gaze lead let seen smile supply wind