LOOK yonder, with delighted heart and eye,
On those low cottages that shine so bright
(Each with its garden plot of smiling green),
Robed in the glory of the setting sun!
But he is parting-fading-day is over-
Yonder he hastens to diffuse new life.
Oh, for a wing to raise me up from earth,
Nearer, and yet more near, to the bright orb,
That unrestrain'd I still might follow him!
Then should I see, in one unvarying glow
Of deathless evening, the reposing world
Beneath me-the hills kindling-the sweet vales,
Beyond the hills, asleep in the soft beams;
The silver streamlet, at the silent touch
Of heavenly light, transfigured into gold,
Flowing in brightness inexpressible !
Nothing to stop or stay my godlike motion !
The rugged hill, with its wild cliffs, in vain
Would rise to hide the sun; in vain would strive
To check my glorious course; the sea already,
With its illumined bays, that burn beneath
The lord of day, before the astonished eyes
Opens its bosom-and he seems at last
Just sinking-No-a power unfelt before—
An impulse indescribable, succeeds!
Onward, entranced, I haste to drink the beams
Of the unfading light-before me day-
And night left still behind-and overhead
Wide heaven-and under me the spreading sea!
A glorious vision, while the setting sun
Is lingering! Oh, to the spirit's flight,
How faint and feeble are material wings!
Yet such our nature is, that when the lark,
High over us, unseen, in the blue sky
Thrills his heart-piercing song, we feel ourselves
Press up from earth, as 'twere in rivalry,-
And when above the savage hill of pines,
The eagle sweeps with outspread wings,-and when The crane pursues, high off, his homeward path, Flying o'er watery moors and wide lakes lonely! Translated from Goethe. ANSTER.
'TIS sunset; to the firmament serene
The Atlantic wave reflects a gorgeous scene;
Broad in the cloudless west, a belt of gold
Girds the blue hemisphere; above unroll'd
The keen clear air grows palpable to sight,
Embodied in a flush of crimson light,
Through which the evening-star, with milder gleam,
Descends to meet her image in the stream.
How awful calm they shine-unmoved, untouched,
Amid the tempests of poor human thought!
There they have watched this weary earth grow old,
And still they beam as fair as at the first,
In all their radiant youth! Still they keep watch
O'er the great march of life, and time, and change,
And even o'er me they bend! Alas, alas!
Meek, silent witnesses of sin and shame,
How much do they endure to look upon!
Now, in the byeways of the lonely night,
Love wanders with her one child, Misery,
And cannot see the heavens through her tears.
Moaning, she wanders with slow fainting steps,
And bends her dying eyes upon the ground
To find a welcome grave.
ROLL on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore ;-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.
The armaments which thunderstrike the wall
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike th' Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee-
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they.
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts :-not so thou,— Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime—
The image of Eternity-the throne
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wanton'd with thy breakers-they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here.
Ir is the midnight hour:—the beauteous sea,
Calm as the cloudless heaven, the heaven discloses,
While many a sparkling star, in quiet glee,
Far down within the watery sky reposes.
As if the ocean's heart were stirr'd
With inward life, a sound is heard,
Like that of dreamer murmuring in his sleep;
'Tis partly the billow, and partly the air,
That lies like a garment floating fair
Above the happy deep.
The sea, I ween, cannot be fann'd
By evening freshness from the land,
For the land it is far away;
But God hath will'd that the sky-born breeze
In the centre of the loneliest seas
Should ever sport and play.
The mighty Moon she sits above,
Encircled with a zone of love,
A zone of dim and tender light
That makes her wakeful eye more bright:
She seems to shine with a sunny ray,
And the night looks like a mellow'd day!
The gracious mistress of the Main
Hath now an undisturbéd reign,
And from her silent throne looks down,
As upon children of her own,
On the waves that lend their gentle breast
In gladness for her couch of rest.
The moon arose; and, lo! the ethereal cliffs
Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone
Among the stars like sunlight, and around
Whose cavern'd base the whirlpools and the waves, Bursting and eddying irresistibly,
Rage and resound for ever.
The crags closed round with black and jagged arms,
The shatter'd mountain overhung the sea,
And faster still beyond all human speed,
Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave,
The little boat was driven. A cavern there
Yawn'd, and amid its slant and winding depths
Ingulf'd the rushing sea.
Sitting on the Shore.
THE tide has ebb'd away:
No more wild dashings 'gainst the adamant rocks,
Nor swaying amidst seaweed false, that mocks
The hues of garden gay:
No laugh of little wavelets at their play :
No lucid pools reflecting heaven's clear brow-
Both storm and calm alike are ended now.
The rocks sit grey and lone:
The shifting sand is spread so smooth and dry
That not a tide might ever have swept by
Stirring it with rude moan:
Only some weedy fragment, idly thrown
To rot beneath the sky, tell what has been:
But Desolation's self has grown serene.
Afar the mountains rise,
And the broad estuary widens out,
All sunshine; wheeling round and round about
Seaward, a white bird flies.
A bird? Nay, seems it rather in these eyes
A spirit, o'er Eternity's dim sea,
Calling "Come thou where all we glad souls be."
Where we sit patient! O great sea beyond,
To which we turn with solemn hope and fond,
But sorrowful no more!
A little while, and then we, too, shall soar
Like white-wing'd sea-birds into the Infinite Deep:
Till then, Thou, Father-wilt our spirits keep.
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