HAIL, Twilight, sovereign of one peaceful hour! Not dull art Thou as undiscerning Night; But studious only to remove from sight Day's mutable distinctions.-Ancient Power! Thus did the waters gleam, the mountains lower, To the rude Briton, when, in wolf-skin vest Here roving wild, he laid him down to rest
On the bare rock, or through a leafy bower Looked ere his eyes were closed. By him was seen The self-same Vision which we now behold,
At thy meek bidding, shadowy Power! brought forth ; These mighty barriers, and the gulf between; The flood, the stars,-a spectacle as old
As the beginning of the heavens and earth!
WITH how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the sky, 'How silently, and with how wan a face!' Where art thou? Thou so often seen on high Running among the clouds a Wood-nymph's race! Unhappy Nuns, whose common breath's a sigh Which they would stifle, move at such a pace! The northern Wind, to call thee to the chase, Must blow to-night his bugle horn. Had I The power of Merlin, Goddess! this should be: And all the Stars, fast as the clouds were riven, Should sally forth, to keep thee company,
Hurrying and sparkling through the clear blue heaven; But, Cynthia! should to thee the palm be given, Queen both for beauty and for majesty.
EVEN as a dragon's eye that feels the stress Of a bedimming sleep, or as a lamp Suddenly glaring through sepulchral damp, So burns yon Taper 'mid a black recess Of mountains, silent, dreary, motionless: The lake below reflects it not; the sky, Muffled in clouds, affords no company To mitigate and cheer its loneliness. Yet, round the body of that joyless Thing Which sends so far its melancholy light, Perhaps are seated in domestic ring A gay society with faces bright,
Conversing, reading, laughing;-or they sing, While hearts and voices in the song unite.
THE stars are mansions built by Nature's hand; And, haply, there the spirits of the blest Dwell, clothed in radiance, their immortal vest; Huge Ocean shows, within his yellow strand, A habitation marvellously planned,
For life to occupy in love and rest;
All that we see-is dome, or vault, or nest, Or fortress, reared at Nature's sage command. Glad thought for every season! but the Spring Gave it while cares were weighing on my heart, 'Mid song of birds, and insects murmuring; And while the youthful year's prolific art- Of bud, leaf, blade, and flower-was fashioning Abodes where self-disturbance hath no part.
DESPONDING Father! mark this altered bough, So beautiful of late, with sunshine warmed. Or moist with dews; what more unsightly now, Its blossoms shrivelled, and its fruit, if formed, Invisible? yet Spring her genial brow Knits not o'er that discolouring and decay As false to expectation. Nor fret thou At like unlovely process in the May Of human life: a Stripling's graces blow, Fade and are shed, that from their timely fall (Misdeem it not a cankerous change) may grow Rich mellow bearings, that for thanks shall call : In all men, sinful is it to be slow
To hope-in Parents, sinful above all.
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