Their chasms; and there the glittering argentry
Ripples and glances on the confluent streams.
A lovelier, purer light than that of day
Rests on the hills; and oh, how awfully
Into that deep and tranquil firmament
The summits of Auseva rise serene!
The watchman on the battlements partakes
The stillness of the solemn hour; he feels
The silence of the earth; the endless sound
Of flowing water soothes him, and the stars,
Which in that brightest moonlight well-nigh quenched,
Scarce visible, as in the utmost depth
Of yonder sapphire infinite, are seen,
Drawn on with elevating influence,
Toward eternity the attempered mind.
A MOONLIGHT NIGHT.
HE winds of heaven are hushed and mild,
Even as the breath of slumbering child!
The western breeze's balmy sigh
Breaks not the mist-wreaths as they lie,
Veiling the tall cliff's rugged brow,
Nor dimples the green wave below.
Such stillness round-such stillness deep-~
That Nature seems herself to sleep!
The full Moon, mounted in the sky,
Looks from her cloudless place on high,
And trembling stars, like fairy gleams,
Twinkle their many-coloured beams,
Spangling the world of waters o'er
With mimic gems from shore to shore,
Till ocean, burning on the view,
Glows like another heaven of blue,
And its broad bosom, as a mirror bright,
Reflects their lucid path, and all the fields of light.
A MOONLIGHT NIGHT AT SEA.
T is the midnight hour :-the beauteous sea, Calm as the cloudless heaven, the heaven discloses, While many a sparkling star, in quiet glee, Far down within the watery sky reposes.
As if the ocean's heart were stirred
With inward life, a sound is heard,
Like that of dreamer murmuring in his sleep;
'Tis partly the billow, and partly the air,
That lies like a garment floating fair
Above the happy deep.
The sea, I ween, cannot be fanned
By evening freshness from the land,
For the land is far away;
But God hath willed that the sky-born breeze
In the centre of the loneliest seas
Should ever sport and play.
The mighty Moon she sits above,
Encircled with a zone of love,
A zone of dim and tender light,
That makes her wakeful eye more bright:
She seems to shine with a sunny ray,
And the light looks like a mellowed day!
The gracious mistress of the main
Hath now an undisturbed reign!
And from her silent throne looks down,
As upon children of her own,
On the waves that lend their gentle breast
In gladness for her couch of rest!
A MOONLIGHT NIGHT AT SEA.
HE Moon is watching in the sky; the stars
Are swiftly wheeling on their golden cars; Ocean, outstretched with infinite expanse, Serenely slumbers in a glorious trance;
The tide, o'er which no troubling spirits breathe,
Reflects the cloudless firmament beneath;
Where, poised as in the centre of a sphere,
A ship above, and ship below appear;
A double image pictured on the deep,
The vessel o'er its shadow seems to sleep;
Yet, like the host of heaven, that never rest,
With evanescent motion to the west,
The pageant glides through loveliness and night,
And leaves behind a rippling wake of light.
A MOONLIGHT SCENE IN ITALY.
HE stars are forth, the Moon above the tops
Of the snow-shining mountains. Beautiful!
I linger yet with Nature, for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of dim and solitary loveliness,
I learned the language of another world.
I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering,-upon such a night
I stood within the Coliseum's wall,
Midst the chief relics of all-mighty Rome;
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and
More near from out the Cæsar's palace came
The owl's long cry, and interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Began and died upon the gentle wind.
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bow-shot-where the Cæsars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst
A grove which springs through levelled battlements,
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths,
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth.
But the gladiators' bloody circus stands,
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection!
While Cæsar's chambers and the Augustan halls
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.
And thou didst shine, thou rolling Moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which softened down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and filled up,
As 'twere, anew, the gap of centuries;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old !—
The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns. 'Twas such a night!
'Tis strange that I recall it at this time;
But I have found our thoughts take wildest flight
Even at the moment when they should array
Themselves in pensive order.
OW oft a cloud, with envious veil,
Obscures yon bashful light,
Which seems so modestly to steal
Along the waste of Night!
'Tis thus the world's obtrusive wrongs
Obscure with malice keen
Some timid heart, which only longs
To live and die unseen.
OEM of the crimson-coloured 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 enamoured orb above
Descends and burns to be with thee!
Thine is the breathing, blushing hour
When all unheavenly passions fly,
Chased by the soul-subduing power
Of Love's delicious witchery.
Oh, 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.
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