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TWILIGHT.

IT is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard;
It is the hour when lovers' vows

Seem sweet in every whispered word;
And gentle winds, and waters near,
Make music to the lonely ear.
Each flower the dews have lightly wet,
And in the sky the stars are met,
And on the wave is deeper blue,

And on the leaf a browner hue,
And in the heaven that clear obscure,
So softly dark, and darkly pure,
Which follows the decline of day,

As twilight melts beneath the moon away.

Lord Byron.

166

EVENING.

EVENING.

FROM yonder grove mark blue-eyed Eve proceed:
First through the warm and deep and scented glens,
Through the pale-glimmering privet-scented lane,
And through those alders by the river-side;
Now the soft dust impedes her, which the sheep
Have hollowed out beneath their hawthorn shade.
But ah! look yonder! see a misty tide

Rise up the hill, lay low the frowning grove,
Enwrap the gay white mansion, sap its sides
Until they melt away like chalk;

Now it comes down against our village-tower,
Covers its base, floats o'er its arches, tears
The clinging ivy from the battlements,
Mingles in broad embrace the obdurate stone,
(All one vast ocean,) and goes swelling on
In slow and silent, dim and deepening waves.
Walter Savage Landor.

A NIGHT-PIECE.

-THE sky is overcast

With a continuous cloud of texture close,
Heavy and wan, all whitened by the Moon
Which through that veil is indistinctly seen,
A dull contracted circle, yielding light
So feebly spread, that not a shadow falls,
Chequering the ground-from rock, plant, tree, or tower.
At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam
Startles the pensive traveller while he treads
His lonesome path, with unobserving eye

Bent earthwards; he looks up—the clouds are split
Asunder, and above his head he sees

The clear Moon, and the glory of the heavens.
There, in a black-blue vault, she sails along
Followed by multitudes of stars, that, small
And sharp, and bright, along the dark abyss
Drive as she drives: how fast they wheel away,
Yet vanish not!-the wind is in the tree,
But they are silent;-still they roll along
Immeasurably distant; and the vault,

Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds,
Still deepens its unfathomable depth.

At length the Vision closes; and the mind,
Not undisturbed by the delight it feels,
Which slowly settles into peaceful calm,
Is left to muse upon the solemn scene.

W. Wordsworth.

168

NIGHT IN THE DESERT.

NIGHT IN THE DESERT.

How beautiful is night!

A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,
Breaks the serene of heaven:

In full orbed glory yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths:
Beneath her steady ray

The desert-circle spreads,

Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
How beautiful is night!

R. Southey.

TO THE MOON.

ART thou pale for weariness

Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless

Among the stars that have a different birth,—
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
P. B. Shelley.

THE MOON.

How beautiful the Queen of Night, on high
Her way pursuing among scatter'd clouds,
Where, ever and anon, her head she shrouds
Hidden from view in dense obscurity!
But look, and to the watchful eye

A brightening edge will indicate that soon
We shall behold the struggling Moon

Break forth,-again to walk the clear blue sky.

W. Wordsworth.

THE WORLD'S WANDERERS.

TELL me, thou star, whose wings of light
Speed thee in thy fiery flight,

In what cavern of the night

Will thy pinions close now?

Tell me, moon, thou pale and grey
Pilgrim of heaven's homeless way,
In what depth of night or day
Seekest thou repose now?

Weary wind, who wanderest
Like the world's rejected guest,
Hast thou still some secret nest

On the tree or billow?

P. B. Shelley.

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