By this the sun his westering car drove low;
Round his broad wheels full many a lucid cloud
Floated, like happy isles in seas of gold:
Along the horizon castled shapes were piled,
Turrets and towers, whose fronts embattled gleam'd
With yellow light: smit by the slanting ray,
A ruddy beam the canopy reflected;
With deeper light the ruby blushed; and thick
Upon the Seraphs' wings the glowing spots
Seem'd drops of fire. Uncoiling from its staff,
With fainter wave, the gorgeous ensign hung,
Or, swelling with the swelling breeze, by fits
Cast off, upon the dewy air, huge flakes
Of golden lustre. Over all the hill,
The heavenly legions, the assembled world,
Evening her crimson tint for ever drew.
But while at gaze, in solemn silence, men
And angels stood, and many a quaking heart
With expectation throbb'd; about the throne
And glittering hill-top slowly wreath'd the clouds,
Erewhile like curtains for adornment hung,
Involving Shiloh and the Seraphim
Beneath a snowy tent. The bands around,
Eyeing the gonfalon that through the smoke
Tower'd into air, resembled hosts who watch
The king's pavilion where, ere battle hour,
A council sits. What their consult might be,
Those seven dread Spirits and their Lord, I mused,
I marvell'd. Was it grace and peace? or death?
Was it of man? Did pity for the Lost
His gentle nature wring, who knew, who felt
How frail is this poor tenement of clay?
Arose there from the misty tabernacle
A cry like that upon Gethsemane?
What pass'd in Jesus' bosom none may know,
But close the cloudy dome invested him;
And, weary with conjecture, round I gazed
Where in the purple west, no more to dawn,
Faded the glories of the dying day.
Mild-twinkling through a crimson-skirted cloud
The solitary star of evening shone.
While gazing wistful on that peerless light
Thereafter to be seen no more (as oft
In dreams strange images will mix), sad thoughts
Pass'd o'er my soul. Sorrowing I cried, “Farewell,
Pale, beauteous planet, that displayest so soft,
Amid yon glowing streak, thy transient beam,
A long, a last farewell! Seasons have changed,
Ages and empires roll'd, like smoke, away,
But thou, unalter'd, beam'st as silver fair
As on thy birthnight! Bright and watchful eyes,
From palaces and bowers, have hail'd thy gem
With secret transport! Natal star of love,
And souls that love the shadowy hour of fancy,
How much I owe thee, how I bless thy ray!
How oft thy rising o'er the hamlet green,
Signal of rest, and social converse sweet,
Beneath some patriarchal tree, has cheer'd
The peasant's heart, and drawn his benison!
Pride of the West! beneath thy placid light
The tender tale shall never more be told,
Man's soul shall never wake to joy again:
Thou setst for ever-lovely orb, farewell!"
UNDRAW yon curtain, look within that room, Where all is splendour, yet where all is gloom: Why weeps that mother? why, in pensive mood, Group noiseless round, that little, lovely brood? The battledore is still, lain by each book, And the harp slumbers in its 'custom'd nook. Who hath done this? what cold, unpitying foe, Hath made his house the dwelling-place of woe? "Tis he, the husband, father, lost in care, O'er that sweet fellow in his cradle there: The gallant bark that rides by yonder strand, Bears him to-morrow from his native land. Why turns he, half unwilling, from his home, To tempt the ocean and the earth to roam? Wealth he can boast, a miser's sigh would hush, And health is laughing in that ruddy blush; Friends spring to greet him, and he has no foeSo honour'd and so bless'd, what bids him go? His eye must see, his foot each spot must tread, Where sleeps the dust of earth's recorded dead; Where rise the monuments of ancient time, Pillar and pyramid in age sublime : The pagan's temple and the churchman's tower, War's bloodiest plain, and Wisdom's greenest bower; All that his wonder woke in schoolboy themes, All that his fancy fired in youthful dreams: Where Socrates once taught he thirsts to stray, Where Homer pour'd his everlasting lay ; From Virgil's tomb he longs to pluck one flower, By Avon's stream to live one moonlight hour;
THE TRAVELER'S FATE,
To pause where England "garners up" her great,
And drop a patriot's tear to Milton's fate;
Fame's living masters, too, he must behold,
Whose deeds shall blazon with the best of old:
Nations compare, their laws and customs scan,
And read, wherever spread, the book of Man;
For these he goes, self-banish'd from his hearth,
And wrings the hearts of all he loves on earth.
Yet say, shall not new joy those hearts inspire,
When grouping round the future winter fire,
To hear the wonders of the world they burn,
And lose his absence in his glad return?
Return? alas! he shall return no more,
To bless his own sweet home, his own proud shore,
Look once again: cold in his cabin now,
Death's finger-mark is on his pallid brow;
No wife stood by, her patient watch to keep,
To smile on him, then turn away to weep;
Kind woman's place rough mariners supplied,
And shared the wanderer's blessing when he died.
Wrapp'd in the raiment that it long must wear,
His body to the deck they slowly bear;
The setting sun flings round his farewell rays,
O'er the broad ocean not a ripple plays;
How eloquent, how awful in its power,
The silent lecture of death's sabbath-hour!
One voice that silence breaks-the prayer is said,
And the last rite man pays to man is paid;
The plashing water marks his resting-place,
And folds him round in one long, cold embrace;
Bright bubbles for a moment sparkle o'er,
Then break, to be, like him, beheld no more;
Down, countless fathoms down, he sinks to sleep,
With all the nameless shapes that haunt the deep.
BY ELIZABETH F. ELLET.
BIRD of the lone and joyless night,
Whence is thy sad and solemn lay?
Attendant on the pale moon's light,
Why shun the garish blaze of day?
When darkness fills the dewy air,
Nor sounds the song of happier bird, Alone, amid the silence there,
Thy wild and plaintive note is heard.
Thyself unseen, thy pensive moan
Pour'd in no living comrade's ear,
The forest's shaded depths alone
Thy mournful melody can hear.
Beside what still and secret spring,
In what dark wood the livelong day, Sett'st thou with dusk and folded wing, To while the hours of light away?
Sad minstrel! thou hast learn'd, like me, That life's deceitful gleam is vain;
And well the lesson profits thee,
Who will not trust its charm again.
Thou, unbeguiled, thy plaint dost trill
To listening night, when mirth is o'er:
I, heedless of the warning, still
Believe, to be deceived once more.
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