epose.

Oh, just, subtle, and mighty opium! that to the hearts of poor and rich
alike, for the wounds that will never heal, and for "the pangs that tempt
the spirit to rebel," bringest an assuaging balm; eloquent opium! that
with thy potent rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath; and to the
guilty man for one night givest back the hopes of his youth, and hands
washed pure from blood; and to the proud man a brief oblivion for

Wrongs undress'd and insults unavenged;

that summonest to the chancery of dreams, for the triumphs of suffering
innocence, false witnesses; and confoundest perjury, and dost reverse the
sentences of unrighteous judges;--thou buildest upon the bosom of
darkness, out of the fantastic imagery of the brain, cities and temples
beyond the art of Phidias and Praxiteles--beyond the splendour of Babylon
and Hekatompylos, and "from the anarchy of dreaming sleep" callest into
sunny light the faces of long-buried beauties and the blessed household
countenances cleansed from the "dishonours of the grave." Thou only
givest these gifts to man; and thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh, just,
subtle, and mighty opium!

INTRODUCTION TO THE PAINS OF OPIUM

Courteous, and I hope indulgent, reader (for all _my_ readers must be
indulgent ones, or else I fear I shall shock them too much to count on
their courtesy), having accompanied me thus far, now let me request you
to move onwards for about eight years; that is to say, from 1804 (when I
have said that my acquaintance with opium first began) to 1812. The
years of academic life are now over and gone--almost forgotten; the
student's cap no longer presses my temples; if my cap exist at all, it
presses those of some youthful scholar, I trust, as happy as myself, and
as passionate a lover of knowledge. My gown is by this time, I dare say,
in the same condition with many thousand excellent books in the Bodleian,
viz., diligently perused by certain studious moths and worms; or
departed, however (which is all that I know of his fate), to that great
reservoir of _somewhere_ to which all the tea-cups, tea-caddies,
tea-pots, tea-kettles, &c., have departed (not to speak of still frailer
vessels, such as glasses, decanters, bed-makers, &c.), which occasional
resemblances in the present generation of tea-cups, &c., remind me of
having once possessed, but of whose departure and final fate I, in common
with most gownsmen of either university, could give, I suspe