82 MUTABILITY. And he sat him down in a lonely place, The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee, The wild hawk stood with the down on his And stared, with his foot on the prey, beak, And the nightingale thought, " I have sung many songs, But never a one so gay, For he sings of what the world will be When the years have died away." MUTABILITY. Tennyson. WE are as clouds that veil the midnight moon; How restlessly they speed, and gleam, quiver, and Streaking the darkness radiantly!-yet soon Night closes round, and they are lost for ever; LARA. Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings 83 We rest-A dream has power to poison sleep; We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep; It is the same !-For, be it joy or sorrow, Shelley. LARA. (NIGHT.) THE crowd are gone, the revellers at rest; And man, o'erlabour'd with his being's strife, Where weakness, strength, vice, virtue, sunk supine, Alike in naked helplessness recline; Glad for awhile to heave unconscious breath, (MORNING.) Night wanes the vapours round the mountains curl'd, Melt into morn, and Light awakes the world. And lead him near to little, but his last; But mighty Nature bounds as from her birth, The sun is in the heavens, and life on earth; Flowers in the valley, splendour in the beam, Health on the gale, and freshness in the stream. LYRICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. Immortal man! behold her glories shine, 85 Nor cloud shall gather more, nor leaf shall fall, Nor gale breathe forth one sigh for thee, for all; But creeping things shall revel in their spoil, And fit thy clay to fertilize the soil. Lord Byron. LYRICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. LIFE ebbs from such old age unmarked and silent, Old Play.-Sir Walter Scott. WHEN the moon is on the wave, Shall my soul be upon thine, Though thy slumber may be deep, Yet thy spirit shall not sleep: |