Say, will my Friend, with soft affection's ear,
The history of a poet's evening hear?

When, in the south, the wan moon, brooding still,
Breathed a pale steam around the glaring hill,
And shades of deep-embattled clouds were seen,
Sporting the northern cliffs with lights between;
Grazing the tempting shades to them denied,
When stood the shortened herbs amid the tide,
Where from the barren wall's unsheltered end
Long rails into the shallow lake extend.

When school-boys stretched their length upon the green;
And round the humming elm, a glimmering scene,

In the brown park, in flocks the troubled deer
Shook the still-twinkling tail and glancing ear;
When horses in the wall-girt intake* stood,
Unshaded, eying far below the flood,
Crowded behind the swain, in mute distress,
With forward neck the closing gate to press
Then, as I wandered where the huddling rill
Brightens with water-breaks the hollow ghyll+
To where, while thick above the branches close,
In dark brown bason its wild waves repose,
Inverted shrubs, and moss of darkest green,
Cling from the rocks, with pale wood-weeds between;
Save that aloft the subtile sunbeams shine
On withered briars that o'er the crags recline;
Sole light admitted here, a small cascade,
Illumes with sparkling foam the twilight shade;
Beyond, along the vista of the brook,

Where antique roots its bustling path o'erlook,
The eye reposes on a secret bridge

Half gray, half shagged with ivy to its ridge.

Sweet rill, farewell! To-morrow's noon again
Shall hide me, wooing long thy wildwood strain;
But now the sun has gained his western road,
And eve's mild hour invites my steps abroad.

While, near the midway cliff, the silvered kite
In many a whistling circle wheels ber flight;
Slant watery lights, from parting clouds, apace
Travel along the precipice's base;

Cheering its naked waste of scattered stone,
By lichens gray, and scanty moss, o'ergrown;
Where scarce the foxglove peeps, or thistle's beard;
And restless stone-chat, all day long, is heard.

How pleasant, as the yellowing sun declines,
And with long rays and shades the landscape shines,

The word intake is local, and signifies a mountain inclosure.

+ Ghyll is also, I believe, a term confined to this country: ghyll and dingle have the same meaning.

The reader who has made the tour of this country, will recognise, in this description, the features which characterize the lower waterfall in the grounds of Rydal.

To mark the birches' stems all golden light,
That lit the dark slant woods with silvery white;
The willow's weeping trees that twinkling hoar,
Glanced oft upturned along the breezy shore
Low bending o'er the coloured water, fold

Their moveless boughs and leaves like threads of gold;
The skiffs with naked mast at anchor laid,

Before the boat-house peeping through the shade;
The unwearied glance of woodman's echoed stroke;
And curling from the trees the cottage smoke.

Their panniered train a group of potters goad,
Winding from side to side up the steep road;
The peasant, from yon cliff of fearful edge
Shot, down the headlong path darts with his sledge;
Bright beams the lonely mountain-horse illume
Feeding'mid purple heath, "green rings,"* and broom;
While the sharp slope the slackened team confounds,
Downward the ponderous timber-wain resounds;
In foamy breaks the rill, with merry song,
Dashed down the rough rock, lightly leaps along;
From lonesome chapel at the mountain's feet,
Three humble bells their rustic chime repeat;
Sounds from the water-side the hammered boat;
And blasted quarry thunders, heard remote!

Even here, amid the sweep of endless woods,
Blue pomp of lakes, high cliffs, and falling floods,
Not undelightful are the simplest charms,
Found by the grassy door of mountain-farms.

Sweetly ferocious,† round his native walks,
Pride of his sister-wives, the monarch stalks;
Spur-clad his nervous feet, and firm his tread;
A crest of purple tops his warrior head.
Bright sparks his black and rolling eye-ball hurls
Afar; his tail he closes and unfurls;

On tiptoe reared, he strains his clarion throat,
Threatened by faintly-answering farms remote.

Bright'ning the cliffs between where sombrous pine

And yew-trees o'er the silver rocks recline,
I love to mark the quarry's moving trains,

Dwarf panniered steeds, and men, and numerous wains;
How busy the enormous hive within,

While Echo dallies with the various din!

Some (hardly heard their chisels' clinking sound)
Toil, small as pigmies in the gulf profound;
Some, dim between th' aërial clifts descried

O'erwalk the slender plank from side to side;

"Vivid rings of green."-Greenwood's Poem on Shooting. "Dolcemente feroce."-Tasso.-In this description of the cock, I remember a spirited one of the same animal in "L'Agriculture, ou Les Géorgiques Francoises," of M. Rossuet.

These, by the pale-blue rocks that ceaseless ring,
Glad from their airy baskets hang, and sing.

Hung o'er a cloud above the steep that rears
Its edge all flame, the broadening sun appears;
A long blue bar its ægis orb divides,
And breaks the spreading of its golden tides;
And now it touches on the purple steep
That flings his shadow on the pictured deep.
'Cross the calm lake's blue shades the cliffs aspire,
With towers and woods, a "prospect all on fire;"
The coves and secret hollows, through a ray
Of fainter gold, a purple gleam betray.
The gilded turf arrays in richer green
Each speck of lawn the broken rocks between.
Deep yellow beams the scattered boles illume,
Far in the level forest's central gloom:
Waving his hat, the shepherd, in the vale,
Directs his winding dog the cliffs to scale,-
That barking, busy 'mid the glittering rocks,
Haunts, where he points, the intercepted' flocks.
Where oaks o'erhang the road the radiance shoots
On tawny earth, wild weeds, and twisted roots;
The druid-stones their lighted fane unfold;
And all the babbling brooks are liquid gold;
Sunk to a curve, the day-star lessens still,
Gives one bright glance, and drops behind the hill.*

In these lone vales, if aught of faith may claim Their silver hairs, and ancient hamlet fame, When up the hills, as now, retreats the light, Strange apparitions mock the village sight.

A desperate form appears that spurs his steed Along the midway cliffs with violent speed; Unhurt pursues his lengthened flight, while all Attend, at every stretch, his headlong fall. Anon, in order mounts, a gorgeous show Of horsemen-shadows moving to and fro; And now the van is gilt with evening's beam; The rear through iron brown betrays a sullen gleam. While silent stands the admiring crowd below, Lost gradual o'er the heights in pomp they go, Till, but the lonely beacon, all is fled

That tips with eve's last gleam his spiry head.

Now, while the solemn evening shadows sail,
On red slow-waving pinions, down the vale;
And, fronting the bright west, in stronger lines,
The oak its darkened boughs and foliage twines;
How pleasant near the tranquil lake to stray
Where winds the road along a secret bay,
Along the "wild meandering shore" to view,
Obsequious grace the winding swan pursue;
* From Thomson.

He swells his lifted chest and backward flings
His bridling neck beneath his tow'ring wings;
On as he floats, the silvered waters glow,

Proud of the varying arch and moveless form of snow.
While tender cares and mild domestic loves
With furtive watch pursue her as she moves,
The female with a meeker charm succeeds,
And her brown little ones around her leads,
Nibbling the water lilies as they pass,
Or playing wanton with the floating grass.
She, in a mother's care, her beauty's pride
Forgets, unwearied watching every side;
Alternately they mount her back, and rest
Close by her mantling wings' embraces prest.
Long may they roam these hermit waves, that sleep
In birch-besprinkled cliffs embosomed deep,
These fairy holms untrodden, still, and green,
Whose shades protect the hidden wave serene,
Whence fragrance scents the water's desert gale,
The violet and lily of the vale!

Where, though her far-off twilight ditty steal,
They not the trip of harmless milk-maid feel;
Yon tuft conceals their home, their cottage bower;
Fresh water-rushes strew the verdant floor;
Long grass and willows form the verdant wall,
And swings above the roof the poplar tall.
Thence issuing oft unwieldy as they stalk,
They crush with broad black feet their flowery walk;
Safe from your door ye hear at breezy morn
The hound, the horse's tread, the mellow horn;
No ruder sound your desert haunts invades
Than waters dashing wild, or rocking shades,
Ye ne'er, like hapless human wanderers, throw
Your young on winter's winding-sheet of snow.

Fair Swan! by all a mother's joys caressed,
Haply some wretch has eyed, and called thee blessed;
I see her now, denied to lay her head,

On cold blue nights, in hut or straw-built shed,
Turn to a silent smile their sleepy cry,

By pointing to a shooting-star on high.

-When low-hung clouds each star of summer hide,

And fireless are the valleys far and wide,
Where the brook brawls along the public road
Dark with bat-haunted ashes stretching broad,
Oft has she taught them on her lap to play
Delighted with the glowworm's harmless ray,
Toss light from hand to hand, while on the ground
Small circles of green radiance gleam around.

Oh! when the bitter showers her path assail,
And roars between the hills the torrent gale;
No more her breath can thaw their fingers cold,
Their frozen arms her neck no more can fold;

Weak roof a cowering form two babes to shield,
And faint the fire a dying heart can yield!
Press the sad kiss, fond mother! vainly fears
Thy flooded cheek to wet them with its tears;
No tears can chill them, and no bosom warms,
Thy breast their death-bed, coffined in thine arms.

Sweet are the sounds that mingle from afar,
Heard by calm lakes, as peeps the folding star,
Where the duck dabbles 'mid the rustling sedge,
And feeding pike starts from the water's edge,
Or the swan stirs the reeds, his neck and bill
Wetting, that drip upon the water still;
And heron, as resounds the trodden shore,
Shoots upward, darting his long neck before.

Now, with religious awe, the farewell light
Blends with the solemn colouring of night;
'Mid groves of clouds that crest the mountain's brow,
And round the west's proud lodge their shadows throw.
Like Una shining on her gloomy way,

The half-seen form of Twilight roams astray;
Shedding, through paly loop-holes mild and small,
Gleams that upon the lake's still bosom fall;
Soft o'er the surface creep those lustres pale
Tracking the fitful motion of the gale.
With restless interchange at once the bright
Wins on the shade, the shade upon the light.
No favoured eye was e'er allowed to gaze
On lovelier spectacle in fairy days;
When gentle Spirits urged a sportive chase,
Brushing with lucid wands the water's face;
While music, stealing round the glimmering deeps,
Charmed the tall circle of the enchanted steeps.
-The lights are vanished from the watery plains:
No wreck of all the pageantry remains.
Unheeded night has overcome the vales:
On the dark earth the bafiled vision fails;
The latest lingerer of the forest train,

The lone black fir, forsakes the faded plain;
Last evening sight, the cottage smoke, no more,
Lost in the thickened darkness, glimmers hoar;
And, towering from the sullen dark-brown mere,
Like a black wall, the mountain-steeps appear.
-Now o'er the soothed accordant heart we feel
A sympathetic twilight slowly steal,
And ever, as we fondly muse, we find
The soft gloom deepening on the tranquil mind.
Stay! pensive, sadly-pleasing visions, stay!
Ah no! as fades the vale, they fade away:
Yet still the tender, vacant gloom remains;
Still the cold cheek its shuddering tear retains.