Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

that it is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke.

Rambler, No. 1.

EVENING.

Now came still evening on, and twilight grey
Had in her sober library all things clad ;
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests
Were slunk all but the wakeful nightingale,
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleased; now glow'd the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length,
Apparent queen, unveil'd her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

Paradise Lost, Book IV.

Now is the pleasant time,

The cool, the silent, save where silence yields
To the night-warbling bird, that now awake
Tunes sweetest his love-labour'd song; now reigns
Full-orb'd the moon, and with more pleasing light
Shadowy sets off the face of things.

Paradise Lost, Book V.
OH Hesperus! thou bringest all good things-
Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer,
To the young bird the parent's brooding wings,
The welcome stall to the o'erlabour'd steer;
Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings,
Whate'er our household gods protect of dear,

Are gather'd round us by thy look of rest ;
Thou bring'st the child, too, to his mother's breast.

Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart
Of those who sail the seas, on the first day
When they from their sweet friends are torn apart;
Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way,
As the far bell of vesper makes him start,
Seeming to weep the dying day's decay;
Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?
Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns!

c

When Nero perish'd by the justest doom
Which ever the destroyer yet destroy'd,
Amidst the roar of liberated Rome,

Of nations freed, and the world overjoy'd,
Some hands unseen strew'd flowers upon his tomb :
Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void
Of feeling for some kindness done, when power
Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour.

Don Juan, Canto II

THE MOON RISING.

As, when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole,
O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain's head;
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies;
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.*

POPE. Iliad, Book VIII.

ΗΥΜΝ ΤΟ DIANA.

QUEEN and huntress, chaste and fair,

Now the sun is laid to sleep,

Seated in thy silver chair,

State in wonted manner keep :

Hesperus entreats thy light,

Goddess excellently bright.

*

As when fayre Cynthia, in darksome night

As in a noyous cloud enveloped,

Where she may finde the substance thin and light,
Breakes forth her silver beames, and her bright hed
Discovers to the world discomfited;

Of the poore travailer, that went astray

With thousand blessings she is heried.

Faery Queen, Book III., Canto 1.

Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made

Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,

And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart

Space to breathe how short soever :
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.

BEN JONSON.

MIDNIGHT.

'TIS midnight: on the mountains brown
The cold, round moon shines deeply down ;
Blue roll the waters, blue the sky
Spreads like an ocean hung on high,
Bespangled with those isles of light,
So wildly, spiritually bright;

Who ever gazed upon them shining,
And turn'd to earth without repining?

BYRON. The Siege of Corinth.

O MAJESTIC night!

Nature's great ancestor!

Day's elder born!

And fated to survive the transient sun!

By mortals and immortals seen with awe!

A starry crown thy raven brow adorns,

An azure zone, thy waist; clouds, in Heaven's loom
Wrought through varieties of shape and shade,
In ample folds of drapery divine,

Thy flowing mantle form, and, heav'n throughout,
Voluminously pour thy pompous train.

YOUNG. Night Thoughts, Night V.

APPROACH OF MORNING.

By this the northerne wagoner had set
His sevenfold teme behind the stedfast starre,
That was in ocean waves yet never wet,
But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre,

To all that in the wide deepe wandering arre,
And chearefull chaunticlere with his note shrill
Had warned once, that Phoebus' fiery carre
In haste was climbing up the easterne hill,
Full envious that night so long his roome did fill.

SPENSER. Faëry Queen, Book I., Canto 2. Now morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl.

Paradise Lost, Book V.

NIGHT Wanes-the vapours round the mountains curl'd,
Melt into morn, and light awakes the world,
Man hath another day to swell the past,
And lead him near to little, but his last :
But mighty Nature bounds as from her birth,
The sun is the heavens, and life on earth,
Flowers in the valley, splendour in the beam,
Health on the gale, and freshness in the stream.

PHOEBUS, arise! *

And paint the sable skies

With azure, white, and red;

BYRON. Lara, Canto II.

Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bed,
That she may thy career with roses spread:

The nightingales thy coming each where sing:
Make an eternal spring!

Give light to this dark world which lieth dead;

Spread forth thy golden hair

In larger locks than thou wast wont before,

And emperor-like decore

With diadem of pearl thy temples fair:

Chase hence the ugly night

Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light.

*

This is the morn should bring into this grove
My Love, to hear and recompense my love.
Fair King who all preserves,

But show thy blushing beams,

The gentle day,

Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about
Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.

Much Ado about Nothing, Act V., s. 1.

And thou two sweeter eyes

Shalt see than those which by Peneus' streams

Did once thy heart surprise.

Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise:

If that ye winds would hear

A voice surpassing far Amphion's lyre,
Your furious chiding stay;
Let Zephyr only breathe,
And with her tresses play.

The winds all silent are,
And Phoebus in his chair
Ensaffroning sea and air,
Makes vanish every star;
Night like a drunkard reels

Beyond the hills to sheen his flaming wheels;
The fields with flowers are deck'd in every hue,
The clouds with orient gold spangle their blue.

DRUMMOND.

CONFORMITY.

It will ever be one of the nicest problems for a man to solve, how far he shall profit by the thoughts of other men, and not be enslaved by them.

Friends in Council.

WHILE you, you think

What others think, or what you think they'll say,

Shaping your course by something scarce more tangible
Than dreams, at best the shadows on the stream

Of aspen trees by flickering breezes sway'd

Load me with irons, drive me from morn till night,

I am not the utter slave which that man is,*

Whose sole word, thought, and deed, are built on what
The world may say of him.

HEALTH.

Quoted ibid.

O BLESSED health! thou art above all gold and treasure; 'tis thou who enlargest the soul, and openest all its powers to receive

'Tis to be a slave in soul,

And to hold no strong controul
Over your own wills, but be

All that others make of ye.

SHELLEY. Masque of Anarchy.

« AnteriorContinuar »