IN the sightless air I dwell,
On the sloping sunbeams play;
Delve the cavern's inmost cell,
Where never yet did daylight stray.
I dive beneath the green sea waves,
And gambol in the briny deeps;
Skim every shore that Neptune laves,
From Lapland's plains to India's steeps.
Oft I mount with rapid force,
Above the wide earth's shadowy zone,
Follow the day-star's flaming course,
Through realms of space to thought unknown;
And listen to celestial sounds
That swell in air, unheard of men,
As I watch my nightly rounds
O'er woody steep and silent glen.
Under the shade of waving trees,
On the green bank of fountain clear,
At pensive eve I sit at ease,
While dying music murmurs near.
And oft, on point of airy clift
That hangs upon the western main, I watch the gay tints passing swift, And twilight veil the liquid plain.
Then, when the breeze has sunk away,
And Ocean scarce is heard to lave,
For me the sea-nymphs softly play
Their dulcet shells beneath the wave.
Their dulcet shells!-I hear them now;
Slow swells the strain upon mine ear;
Now faintly falls-now warbles low,
Till rapture melts into a tear.
The ray that silvers o'er the dew,
And trembles through the leafy shade,
And tints the scene with softer hue,
Calls me to rove the lonely glade;
Or hie me to some ruin'd tower,
Faintly shown by moonlight gleam, Where the lone wanderer owns my power, In shadows dire that substance seem;
In thrilling sounds that murmur woe, And pausing silence make more dread; In music breathing from below
Sad, solemn strains, that wake the dead.
Unseen I move-unknown am fear'd;-
Fancy's wildest dreams I weave;
And oft by bards my voice is heard
To die along the gales of eve.
"One sun by day, by night ten thousand shine."-YOUNG.
'Tis past, the sultry tyrant of the South
Has spent his short-liv'd rage; more grateful hours
Move silent on; the skies no more repel
The dazzled sight, but, with mild maiden beams
Of temper'd lustre, court the cherish'd eye
To wander o'er their sphere; where hung aloft
DIAN'S bright crescent, like a silver bow,
New strung in heaven, lifts its beamy horns.
Impatient for the night, and seems to push
Her brother down the sky. Fair VENUS shines
Even in the eye of day; with sweetest beam
Propitious shines, and shakes a trembling flood
Of soften'd radiance with her dewy locks.
The shadows spread apace; while meeken'd Eve,
Her cheek yet warm with blushes, slow retires
Through the Hesperian gardens of the West,
And shuts the gates of Day. 'Tis now the hour
When Contemplation, from her sunless haunts,
The cool damp grotto, or the lonely depth
Of unpierc'd woods, where wrapt in solid shade
She mus'd away the gaudy hours of noon,
And fed on thoughts unripen'd by the sun,
Moves forward; and with radiant finger points
To yon blue concave swell'd by breath divine,
Where, one by one, the living eyes of heaven
Awake, quick kindling o'er the face of ether
One boundless blaze; ten thousand trembling fires,
And dancing lustres, where th' unsteady eye,
Restless and dazzled, wanders unconfin'd
O'er all this field of glories; spacious field,
And worthy of the Master: He, whose hand
With hieroglyphics elder than the Nile
Inscribed the mystic tablet; hung on high
To public gaze, and said, Adore, O man!
The finger of thy GOD. From what pure wells
Of milky light, what soft o'erflowing urn,
Are all these lamps so fill'd?-these friendly lamps,
For ever streaming o'er the azure deep
To point our path, and light us to our home.
How soft they slide along their lucid spheres!
And, silent as the foot of Time, fulfil
Their destin'd courses. Nature's self is hush'd,
And, but a scatter'd leaf, which rustles through
The thick-wove foliage, not a sound is heard
To break the midnight air; though the rais'd ear,
Intensely listening, drinks in every breath.
How deep the silence, yet how loud the praise!
But are they silent all? or is there not
A tongue in every star that talks with man,
And woos him to be wise? nor woos in vain :
This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,
And Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.
At this still hour the self-collected soul
Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there
Of high descent, and more than mortal rank;
An embryo GOD; a spark of fire divine,
Which must burn on for ages, when the sun
(Fair transitory creature of a day!)
Has clos'd his golden eye, and, wrapt in shades,
Forgets his wonted journey through the East.
Ye citadels of light, and seats of GODS!
Perhaps my future home, from whence the soul,
Revolving periods past, may oft look back,
With recollected tenderness, on all
The various busy scenes she left below,
Its deep-laid projects and its strange events,
As on some fond and doting tale that sooth'd
Her infant hours-O be it lawful now
To tread the hallow'd circle of your courts,
And with mute wonder and delighted awe
Approach your burning confines. Seized in thought,
On Fancy's wild and roving wing I sail,
From the green borders of the peopled earth,
And the pale moon, her duteous, fair attendant;
From solitary Mars; from the vast orb
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