Its roof star-pictured Nature's ceiling,
Where, trancing the rapt spirit's feeling,
And God himself to man revealing,
The harmonious spheres
Make music, though unheard their pealing
By mortal ears.
Fair stars! are not your beings pure?
Can sin, can death, your worlds obscure?
Else why so swell the thoughts at your
Aspect above?
Ye must be Heavens, that make us sure
Of heavenly love!
And in your harmony sublime
I read the doom of distant time:
That man's regenerate soul from crime
Shall yet be drawn,
And Reason, on his mortal clime,
Immortal dawn.
What's hallowed ground? 'T is what gives birth
To sacred thoughts in souls of worth !—
Peace! Independence! Truth! go forth,
Earth's compass round;
And your high priesthood shall make earth
All hallowed ground!
LL bid the hyacinth to blow,
I'll teach my grotto green to be;
And sing my true love, all below
The holly bower and myrtle-tree.
There all his wild-wood sweets to bring,
The sweet south wind shall wander by, And with the music of his wing
Delight my rustling canopy.
Come to my close and clustering bower,
Thou spirit of a milder clime;
Fresh with the dews of fruit and flower,
Of mountain-heath, and moory thyme.
With all thy rural echoes come,
Sweet comrade of the rosy day, Wafting the wild bee's gentle hum, Or cuckoo's plaintive roundelay.
Where'er thy morning breath has played,
Whatever isles of ocean fanned,
Come to my blossom-woven shade,
Thou wandering wind of fairy-land.
For sure from some enchanted isle,
Where Heaven and Love their sabbath hold,
Where pure and happy spirits smile,
Of beauty's fairest, brightest mould ;
From some green Eden of the deep,
Where Pleasure's sigh alone is heaved,
Where tears of rapture lovers weep,
Endeared, undoubting, undeceived;
From some sweet paradise afar,
Thy music wanders, distant, lostWhere Nature lights her leading star, And love is never, never crossed.
Oh, gentle gale of Eden bowers,
If back thy rosy feet should roam,
To revel with the cloudless Hours
In Nature's more propitious home,
Name to thy loved Elysian groves,
That o'er enchanted spirits twine,
A fairer form than cherub loves,
And let the name be Caroline.
TO THE EVENING STAR.
GEM of the crimson-colored Even,
Companion of retiring day,
Why at the closing gates of Heaven,
Beloved star, dost thou delay ?
So fair thy pensile beauty burns,
When soft the tear of twilight flows;
So due thy plighted love returns,
To chambers brighter than the rose ;
To Peace, to Pleasure, and to Love,
So kind a star thou seem'st to be,
Sure some enamored orb above
Descends and burns to meet with thee.
Thine is the breathing, blushing hour,
When all unheavenly passions fly,
Chased by the soul-subduing power
Of Love's delicious witchery.
O sacred to the fall of day,
Queen of propitious stars, appear, And early rise, and long delay, When Caroline herself is here!
Shine on her chosen green resort,
Whose trees the sunward summit crown,
And wanton flowers, that well may court An Angel's feet to tread them down.
Shine on her sweetly-scented road,
Thou Star of evening's purple dome,
That lead'st the nightingale abroad,
And guid'st the pilgrim to his home.
Shine, where my charmer's sweeter breath
Embalms the soft exhaling dew,
Where dying winds a sigh bequeath
To kiss the cheek of rosy hue.
Where, winnowed by the gentle air,
Her silken tresses darkly flow,
And fall upon her brow so fair,
Like shadows on the mountain snow.
Thus, ever thus, at day's decline,
In converse sweet to wander far,
O bring with thee my Caroline,
And thou shalt be my Ruling Star!
The Light of the Haram.
(FROM LALLA ROOKH.)
HO has not heard of the Vale of CASHMERE,
With its roses the brightest that earth ever gave,
Its temples, and grottoes, and fountains as clear
As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave?
Oh! to see it at sunset,-when warm o'er the Lake
Its splendor at parting a summer eve throws,
Like a bride, full of blushes, when lingering to take
A last look of her mirror at night ere she goes!
When the shrines through the foliage are gleaming half shown,
And each hallows the hour by some rites of its own.
Here the music of prayer from a minaret swells,
Here the Magian his urn, full of perfume, is swinging,
And here at the altar, a zone of sweet bells
Round the waist of some fair Indian dancer is ringing.
Or to see it by moonlight,—when mellowly shines
The light o'er its palaces, gardens, and shrines;
When the water-falls gleam, like a quick fall of stars,
And the nightingale's hymn from the Isle of Chenars
Is broken by laughs and light echoes of feet
From the cool, shining walks where the young people meet.
Or at morn, when the magic of daylight awakes
A new wonder each minute, as slowly it breaks,
Hills, cupolas, fountains, called forth every one
Out of darkness, as they were just born of the Sun.
When the Spirit of Fragrance is up with the day,
From his Haram of night-flowers stealing away;
And the wind, full of wantonness, woos like a lover
The young aspen-trees, till they tremble all over.
When the East is as warm as the light of first hopes,
And Day, with his banner of radiance unfurled,
Shines in through the mountainous portal that opes,
Sublime, from that Valley of bliss to the world!
But never yet, by night or day,
In dew of spring or summer's ray,
Did the sweet Valley shine so gay
As now it shines-all love and light,
Visions by day and feasts by night!
A happier smile illumes each brow,
With quicker spread each heart uncloses,
And all is ecstasy, for now
The Valley holds its Feast of Roses;
The joyous time, when pleasures pour
Profusely round, and, in their shower,
Hearts open, like the Season's Rose,-
The Floweret of a hundred leaves,
Expanding while the dew-fall flows,
And every leaf its balm receives.
'Twas when the hour of evening came
Upon the Lake, serene and cool,
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