Of the dying year, to which this closing | A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain and fire and hail will burst: oh hear! III. Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay Beside a pumice isle in Baia's bay, bow'd One too like thee: tameless and swift and proud. V. Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth; And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! For whose path the Atlantic's level powers Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth As thus with thee in prayer in my sore I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn need. Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! Where a little headstone stood; How the flakes were folding it gently, As did robins the babes in the wood. There's a new foot on the floor, my WITH silent awe I hail the sacred morn, friend, And a new face at the door, my friend, A new face at the door. ALFRED TENNYSON. MORNING. HARK-hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies: That slowly wakes while all the fields are still! A soothing calm on every breeze is borne; A graver murmur gurgles from the rill; And Echo answers softer from the hill; And softer sings the linnet from the thorn; The skylark warbles in a tone less shrill. Hail, light serene! hail, sacred Sabbath morn! The rooks float silent by in airy drove; The sun a placid yellow lustre throws; The gales that lately sigh'd along the grove, Have hush'd their downy wings in dead | Then let me rove some wild and heathy The hovering rack of clouds forgets to Or find some ruin midst its dreary dells, Sits in you western tent whose cloudy While Spring shall pour his showers, as skirts, With brede ethereal wove, O'erhang his wavy bed: Now air is hush'd, save where the weak eyed bat, oft he wont, And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve! While Summer loves to sport Beneath thy lingering light; With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with wing, Or where the beetle winds His small but sullen horn, As oft he rises midst the twilight path, Against the pilgrim borne in needless hum: Now teach me, maid composed, Whose numbers stealing through thy darkening vale May not unseemly with its stillness suit; As musing slow I hail Thy genial loved return! For when thy folding star arising shows And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, And sheds the freshening dew, and, love lier still, The pensive Pleasures sweet, Prepare thy shadowy car. leaves; Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, Affrights thy shrinking train, And rudely rends thy robes; So long, regardful of thy quiet rule, Thy gentlest influence own, WILLIAM COLLINS. THE MIDGES DANCE ABOON THE THE midges dance aboon the burn; The pairtricks down the rushy holm Set up their e'ening ca'. Now loud and clear the blackbird's sang Rings through the briery shaw, Beneath the golden gloamin' sky The redbreast pours his sweetest strains Their little nestlings torn, The roses fauld their silken leaves, Spread fragrance through the dell. ROBERT TANNAHILL. SONNET. It is a beauteous Evening, calm and free; Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here, Like saints at evening bow'd in prayer Around their holy shrine; And through their leaves the night-winds blow, So calm and still, their music low And yonder western throng of clouds, So calmly move, so softly glow, The blue isles of the golden sea, The night-arch floating high, The spirit of the holy eve Comes through the silent air If thou appear'st untouch'd by solemn And the far depths of ether beam thought, Thy nature is not therefore less divine: Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year; So passing fair, we almost dream That we can rise and wander through Their open paths of trackless blue. And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner Each soul is fill'd with glorious dreams, shrine, Each pulse is beating wild; God being with thee when we know it And thought is soaring to the shrine not. WILLIAM WOrdsworth. SABBATH EVENING. How calmly sinks the parting sun! And beautiful as dream of heaven It slumbers on the hill; Earth sleeps, with all her glorious things, Of glory undefiled! And holy aspirations start, Like blessed angels, from the heart, GEORGE DENISON PRENTICE. TO NIGHT. MYSTERIOUS Night! when our first parent knew Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue? |