All voices sad and clear, The willing thrall of trances sweet I lie. Some melancholy gale And o'er my thoughts are cast Renewed to splendor in my dreaming eyes. As poised on vibrant wings, To the red flowers, So, lost in vivid light, So, rapt from day and night, I linger in delight, Enraptured o'er the vision-freighted hours. NOONTIDE. ROSE TERRY. BENEATH a shivering canopy reclined, DR. JOHN LEYDEN. ON A BEAUTIFUL DAY. O UNSEEN Spirit! now a calm divine And cloudless brightness opens wide and high The chime of bells remote, the murmuring sea, The song of birds in whispering copse and wood, The distant voice of children's thoughtless glee, And maiden's song, are all one voice of good. Amid the leaves' green mass a sunny play Of flash and shadow stirs like inward life; The ship's white sail glides onward far away, Unhaunted by a dream of storm or strife. JOHN STERLING. THE MIDGES DANCE ABOON THE BURN. THE midges dance aboon the burn; The dews begin to fa'; The pairtricks down the rushy holm Set up their e'ening ca'. Now loud and clear the black bird's sang Rings through the briery shaw, While, flitting gay, the swallows play Beneath the golden gloamin' sky The mavis mends her lay; The redbreast pours his sweetest strains Their little nestlings torn, Gaes jinking through the thorn. The roses fauld their silken leaves, Spread fragrance through the dell. Of mirth and revelry, The simple joys that nature yields ROBERT TANNAHILL. And languishing to hear thy welcome sound, Lies the vast inland, stretched beyond the sight. Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth, God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth! Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest ; Curl the still waters, bright with stars; and rouse The wide old wood from his majestic rest, Summoning, from the innumerable boughs, The strange deep harmonies that haunt his breast. Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass, And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass. Stoop o'er the place of graves, and softly sway The sighing herbage by the gleaming stone That they who near the churchyard willows stray, And listen in the deepening gloom, alone, May think of gentle souls that passed away, Like thy pure breath, into the vast unknown, Sent forth from heaven among the sons of men, And gone into the boundless heaven again. The faint old man shall lean his silver head To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, And dry the moistened curls that overspread His temples, while his breathing grows more deep; And they who stand about the sick man's bed Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep, And softly part his curtains to allow Star of love's soft interviews, THOMAS CAMPBELL CAPE-COTTAGE AT SUNSET. WE stood upon the ragged rocks, When the long day was nearly done; The waves had ceased their sullen shocks, And lapped our feet with murmuring tone, And o'er the bay in streaming locks Blew the red tresses of the sun. Along the west the golden bars Still to a deeper glory grew; Above our heads the faint, few stars Looked out from the unfathomed blue; And the fair city's clamorous jars Seemed melted in that evening hue. O sunset sky! O purple tide! O friends to friends that closer pressed! Those glories have in darkness died, And ye have left my longing breast. I could not keep you by my side, Nor fix that radiance in the west. SUNSET. W. B. GLAZIER. IF solitude hath ever led thy steps Hung o'er the sinking sphere: Crowned with a diamond wreath. Peeps like a star o'er ocean's western edge, Shaded with deepest purple, gleam Like islands on a dark-blue sea; Then has thy fancy soared above the earth, And furled its wearied wing Within the Fairy's fane. Yet not the golden islands Nor the feathery curtains Paving that gorgeous dome, Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. EVENING. FROM "DON JUAN." AVE Maria! o'er the earth and sea, That heavenliest hour of heaven is worthiest thee! Ave Maria! blessed be the hour, The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft, While swung the deep bell in the distant tower Or the faint dying day hymn stole aloft, And not a breath crept through the rosy air, And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer. Ave Maria! 't is the hour of prayer! Ave Maria! 't is the hour of love! Ave Maria! may our spirits dare Look up to thine and to thy Son's above! Ave Maria! O that face so fair! Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty dove, What though 't is but a pictured image? strike, That painting is no idol, — 't is too like. Sweet hour of twilight in the solitude Of the pine forest, and the silent shore Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood, Rooted where once the Adrian wave flowed o'er To where the last Cæsarean fortress stood, Evergreen forest; which Boccaccio's lore And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me, How have I loved the twilight hour and thee! The shrill cicalas, people of the pine, Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine, And vesper bells that rose the boughs along; The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line, His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng Which learned from this example not to fly From a true lover, - shadowed my mind's eye. O Hesperus! thou bringest all good things, Whate'er our household gods protect of dear, Are gathered round us by thy look of rest; Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast. Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart Of those who sail the seas, on the first day When they from their sweet friends are torn apart; Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way, As the far bell of vesper makes him start, Seeming to weep the dying day's decay : Is this a fancy which our reason scorns? Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns. Now came still evening on, and twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad ; Silence accompanied; for beast and bird, They to their grassy couch, these to their nests, Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale; She all night long her amorous descant sung. Silence was pleased: now glowed the firmament With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon, Rising in clouded majesty, at length Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light, And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw. When Adam thus to Eve: "Fair consort, the hour Of night, and all things now retired to rest, Our walk at noon, with branches overgrown, God is thy law, thou mine; to know no more TO NIGHT. MILTON. SWIFTLY walk over the western wave, Out of the misty eastern cave, Wrap thy form in a mantle gray, Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day, When I arose and saw the dawn, When light rode high, and the dew was gone, I sighed for thee! MYSTERIOUS Night! when our first parent knew Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find, NIGHT. BLANCO WHITE. How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear Were discord to the speaking quietude That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault, Studded with stars unutterably bright, Seems like a canopy which love has spread Her soul above this sphere of earthliness; Where silence undisturbed might watch alone, So cold, so bright, so still. The orb of day In southern climes o'er ocean's waveless field Sinks sweetly smiling: not the faintest breath Steals o'er the unruffled deep; the clouds of eve Reflect unmoved the lingering beam of day; And vesper's image on the western main Is beautifully still. To-morrow comes : Cloud upon cloud, in dark and deepening mass, Rolls o'er the blackened waters; the deep roar Of distant thunder mutters awfully; Tempest unfolds its pinion o'er the gloom That shrouds the boiling surge; the pitiless fiend, With all his winds and lightnings, tracks his prey; The torn deep yawns, the vessel finds a grave Beneath its jagged gulf. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. NIGHT. " FROM CHILDE HAROLD." 'Tis night, when Meditation bids us feel We We once have loved, though love is at an end: The heart, lone mourner of its baffled zeal, Though friendless now, will dream it had a friend. Who with the weight of years would wish to bend, When Youth itself survives young Love and joy? Alas! when mingling souls forget to blend, Death hath but little left him to destroy ! Ah happy years! once more who would not be a boy? Thus bending o'er the vessel's laving side, To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been; Night is the time for toil : To plough the classic field, Its wealthy furrows yield; Night is the time to weep: To wet with unseen tears Hopes, that were Angels at their birth, Night is the time to watch: O'er ocean's dark expanse, To hail the Pleiades, or catch The full moon's earliest glance, That brings into the homesick mind All we have loved and left behind. Night is the time for care : Brooding on hours misspent, To see the spectre of Despair Come to our lonely tent; Like Brutus, midst his slumbering host, Summoned to die by Cæsar's ghost. Night is the time to think : When, from the eye, the soul Takes flight; and on the utmost brink Of yonder starry pole |