Where musing solitude might love to lift
Her soul above this sphere of earthliness;
Where silence undisturbed might watch alone,
So cold, so bright, so still.

The orb of day
In southern climes o'er ocean's waveless field
Sinks sweetly smiling: not the faintest breath
Steals o'er the unruffled deep; the clouds of eve
Reflect unmoved the lingering beam of day;
And vesper's image on the western main
Is beautifully still. To-morrow comes :
Cloud upon cloud, in dark and deepening mass,
Rolls o'er the blackened waters; the deep roar
Of distant thunder mutters awfully;
Tempest unfolds its pinion o'er the gloom
That shrouds the boiling surge; the pitiless fiend,
With all his winds and lightnings, tracks his prey;
The torn deep yawns,
- the vessel finds a grave
Beneath its jagged gulf.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

NIGHT.

NIGHT is the time for rest :
How sweet, when labors close,

To gather round an aching breast

The curtain of repose,

Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head Upon our own delightful bed!

Night is the time for dreams:

The gay romance of life,

When truth that is, and truth that seems,
Blend in fantastic strife;

Ah! visions, less beguiling far
Than waking dreams by daylight are!

Night is the time for toil:

To plough the classic field, Intent to find the buried spoil

Its wealthy furrows yield ; Till all is ours that sages taught, That poets sang or heroes wrought.

Night is the time to weep:

To wet with unseen tears
Those graves of Memory, where sleep

The joys of other years;
Hopes, that were Angels at their birth,
But perished young, like things of earth.

Night is the time to watch:
O'er ocean's dark expanse,
To hail the Pleiades, or catch

The full moon's earliest glance, That brings into the homesick mind All we have loved and left behind.

Night is the time for care:

Brooding on hours misspent, To see the spectre of Despair

Come to our lonely tent; Like Brutus, midst his slumbering host, Startled by Cæsar's stalwart ghost.

Night is the time to muse:

When, from the eye, the soul
Takes flight; and, with expanding views
Beyond the starry pole

Descries athwart the abyss of night
The dawn of uncreated light.

Night is the time to pray :

Our Saviour oft withdrew
To desert mountains far away;

So will his followers do,

Steal from the throng to haunts untrod, And hold communion there with God.

Night is the time for Death:

When all around is peace, Calmly to yield the weary breath,

From sin and suffering cease,

Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign To parting friends ; - such death be mine

JAMES MONTGOMERY

HYMN TO THE NIGHT.
Ασπασίη, τρίλλιστος.

I HEARD the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might, Stoop o'er me from above;

The calm, majestic presence of the Night, As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
The manifold, soft chimes,

That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,
Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air

My spirit drank repose;

The fountain of perpetual peace flows there. From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
What man has borne before!

Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,
And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!
Descend with broad-winged flight,

The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair, The best-beloved Night!

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

HYMN.

FROM "THE SEASONS."

THESE, as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense and every heart is joy.
Then comes thy glory in the summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year;
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks,
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves in hollow-whispering gales.
Thy bounty shines in autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In winter awful thou! with clouds and storms
Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled.
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, thou bidd'st the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined;
Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade;
And all so forming an harmonious whole,
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand,
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres ;
Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming,
thence

The fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day ;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend! join every living soul,
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join; and, ardent, raise
One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,
Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness
breathes :

O, talk of him in solitary glooms;
Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.
And ye whose bolder note is heard afar,
Who shake the astonished world, lift high to
Heaven

The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.

His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills;
And let me catch it as I muse along.

Ye headlong torrents, rapid, and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,
Sound his stupendous praise, whose greater
voice

Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall. Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,

In mingled clouds to him, - whose sun exalts, Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.

Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave, to him;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! best image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,
From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On Nature write with every beam his praise.
The thunder rolls: be hushed the prostrate
world;

While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.
Bleat out afresh, ye hills; ye mossy rocks,
Retain the sound; the broad responsive low,
Ye valleys, raise; for the great Shepherd reigns,
And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come.
Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless song
Burst from the groves; and when the restless
day,

Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm
The listening shades, and teach the night his

praise.

Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn ! in swarming cities vast,
Assembled men to the deep organ join
The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear,
At solemn pauses, through the swelling bass;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardor rise to heaven.
Or if you rather choose the rural shade,
And find a fane in every sacred grove,
There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,

The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre,
Still sing the God of seasons as they roll.
For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows, the summer ray
Russets the plain, inspiring autumn gleams,
Or winter rises in the blackening east,
Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more,
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat!
Should fate command me to the farthest verge
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,
Rivers unknown to song, where first the sun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
Flames on the Atlantic isles, - 't is naught to

me:

Since God is ever present, ever felt,

In the void waste as in the city full;
And where he vital breathes there must be joy.
When even at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers,
Will rising wonders sing: I cannot go
Where Universal Love not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns;
From seeming evil still educing good,
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression. But I lose
Myself in him, in light ineffable!

Come, then, expressive Silence, muse his praise.

JAMES THOMSON.

MORNING IN MAY.*

FROM "THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS: THE KNIGHTES TALE."

THE busy larke, messager of daye, Salueth in hire song the morwe graye ; And fyry Phebus ryseth up so brighte, That al the orient laugheth of the lighte, And with his stremes dryeth in the greves + The silver dropes, hongyng on the leeves. And Arcite, that is in the court ryal With Theseus, his squyer principal, Is risen, and loketh on the merye day. And for to doon his observaunce to May, Remembryng on the poynt of his desir, He on his courser, stertyng as the fir, ‡ Is riden, into the feeldes him to pleye, § Out of the court, were it a myle or tweye. And to the grove, of which that I yow tolde, By aventure his wey he gan to holde, To maken him a garland of the greves, Were it of woodebynde or hawethorn leves, And lowde he song ayens the sonne scheene : May, with alle thy floures and thy greene, Welcome be thou, wel faire fressche May, I hope that I som grene gete may."

CHAUCER.

Now rings the woodland loud and long, The distance takes a lovelier hue, And drowned in yonder living blue The lark becomes a sightless song.

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
The flocks are whiter down the vale,
And milkier every milky sail
On winding stream or distant sea;

Where now the sea-mew pipes, or dives
In yonder greening gleam, and fly
The happy birds, that change their sky
To build and brood, that live their lives

From land to land; and in my breast Spring wakens too; and my regret Becomes an April violet,

And buds and blossoms like the rest.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

DIE DOWN, O DISMAL DAY.

DIE down, O dismal day, and let me live;
And come, blue deeps, magnificently strewn
With colored clouds, large, light, and fugi-

tive,

By upper winds through pompous motions blown.
Now it is death in life, -a vapor dense
Creeps round my window, till I cannot see
The far snow-shining mountains, and the glens
Shagging the mountain-tops. O God! make free
This barren shackled earth, so deadly cold, —
Breathe gently forth thy spring, till winter flies
in rude amazement, fearful and yet bold,
While she performs her customed charities;
I weigh the loaded hours till life is bare,
O God, for one clear day, a snowdrop, and sweet
air!

SUMMER LONGINGS.

DAVID GRAY.

AH! my heart is weary waiting, Waiting for the May, Waiting for the pleasant rambles Where the fragrant hawthorn-brambles, With the woodbine alternating, Scent the dewy way. Ah! my heart is weary waiting, Waiting for the May.

Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
Longing for the May, —

Longing to escape from study
To the young face fair and ruddy,