THICK-RUSHING, like an ocean vast Of bisons the far prairie shaking, The notes crowd heavily and fast As surfs, one plunging while the last Draws seaward from its foamy breaking.
Or in low murmurs they began,
Rising and rising momently,
As o'er a harp Æolian
A fitful breeze, until they ran
Up to a sudden ecstasy.
And then, like minute-drops of rain
Ringing in water silvery,
They lingering dropped and dropped again, Till it was almost like a pain
To listen when the next would be.
How sweet the answer Echo makes To Music at night
When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes,
And far away o'er lawns and lakes
Goes answering light!
Yet Love hath echoes truer far
And far more sweet
Than e'er, beneath the moonlight's star,
Of horn or lute or soft guitar
The songs repeat.
'Tis when the sigh,-in youth sincere
The sigh that's breathed for one to hear
Is by that one, that only Dear
Breathed back again.
IT is the hour when from the boughs The nightingale's high note is heard; It is the hour when lovers' vows
Seem sweet in every whispered word; And gentle winds, and waters near, Make music to the lonely ear. Each flower the dews have lightly wet, And in the sky the stars are met, And on the wave is deeper blue,
And on the leaf a browner hue, And in the heaven that clear obscure, So softly dark, and darkly pure, Which follows the decline of day,
As twilight melts beneath the moon away.
FROM yonder grove mark blue-eyed Eve proceed: First through the warm and deep and scented glens, Through the pale-glimmering privet-scented lane, And through those alders by the river-side; Now the soft dust impedes her, which the sheep Have hollowed out beneath their hawthorn shade. But ah! look yonder! see a misty tide
Rise up the hill, lay low the frowning grove, Enwrap the gay white mansion, sap its sides Until they melt away like chalk;
Now it comes down against our village-tower, Covers its base, floats o'er its arches, tears The clinging ivy from the battlements, Mingles in broad embrace the obdurate stone, (All one vast ocean,) and goes swelling on In slow and silent, dim and deepening waves. Walter Savage Landor.
-THE sky is overcast With a continuous cloud of texture close, Heavy and wan, all whitened by the Moon Which through that veil is indistinctly seen, A dull contracted circle, yielding light So feebly spread, that not a shadow falls, Chequering the ground-from rock, plant, tree, or tower. At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam Startles the pensive traveller while he treads His lonesome path, with unobserving eye Bent earthwards; he looks up-the clouds are split Asunder,—and above his head he sees
The clear Moon, and the glory of the heavens. There, in a black-blue vault, she sails along Followed by multitudes of stars, that, small And sharp, and bright, along the dark abyss Drive as she drives: how fast they wheel away, Yet vanish not!-the wind is in the tree, But they are silent;-still they roll along Immeasurably distant; and the vault,
Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds, Still deepens its unfathomable depth. At length the Vision closes; and the mind, Not undisturbed by the delight it feels, Which slowly settles into peaceful calm, Is left to muse upon the solemn scene.
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