Yet not the golden islands
Gleaming in yon flood of light,

Nor the feathery curtains
Stretching o'er the sun's bright couch,
Nor the burnished ocean's waves

Paving that gorgeous dome,
So fair, so wonderful a sight
As Mab's ethereal palace could afford.
Yet likest evening's vault, that fairy Hall!
Heaven, low resting on the wave, it spread
Its floors of flashing light,
Its vast and azure dome,
Its fertile golden islands
Floating on a silver sea;

Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted
Through clouds of circumambient darkness,
And pearly battlements around
Looked o'er the immense of heaven.

That painting is no idol, —'t is too like.

Sweet hour of twilight! in the solitude

Of the pine forest, and the silent shore Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood, Rooted where once the Adrian wave flowed o'er

To where the last Cæsarean fortress stood,

Evergreen forest; which Boccaccio's lore And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me, How have I loved the twilight hour and thee! The shrill cicalas, people of the pine,

Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine,

And vesper bells that rose the boughs along; The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line,

His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng Which learned from this example not to fly From a true lover, - shadowed my mind's eye.

O 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'erlabored steer;
Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings,
Whate'er our household gods protect of dear,
Are gathered round us by thy look of rest;
Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast.

Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts tho 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.

EVENING IN PARADISE.

BYRON.

Now came still evening on, and twilight gray
Had in her sober livery 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 glowed the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.
When Adam thus to Eve: "Fair consort, the
hour

Of night, and all things now retired to rest,
Mind us of like repose, since God hath set
Labor and rest, as day and night, to men
Successive; and the timely dew of sleep,
Now falling with soft slumberous weight, inclines
Our eyelids. Other creatures all day long
Rove idle, unemployed, and less need rest;
Man hath his daily work of body or mind
Appointed, which declares his dignity,
And the regard of Heaven on all his ways;
While other animals unactive range,
And of their doings God takes no account.
To-morrow, ere fresh morning streak the east
With first approach of light, we must be risen,
And at our pleasant labor, to reform
Yon flowery arbors, yonder alleys green,

Our walk at noon, with branches overgrown,
That mock our scant manuring, and require
More hands than ours to lop their wanton growth.
Those blossoms also, and those dropping gums,
That lie bestrewn, unsightly and unsmooth,
Ask riddance, if we mean to tread with ease;
Meanwhile, as Nature wills, night bids us rest."
To whom thus Eve with perfect beauty adorned:
66 My author and disposer, what thou bidd'st
Unargued I obey; so God ordains ;

God is thy law, thou mine; to know no more
Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise.
With thee conversing I forget all time;

All seasons and their change, all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild; then silent night,
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:
But neither breath of morn, when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun
On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers,
Nor grateful evening mild; nor silent night
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon,
Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet."
Thus talking, hand in hand alone they passed

On to their blissful bower.

TO NIGHT.

MILTON.

SWIFTLY walk over the western wave,
Spirit of Night!

Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear
Which make thee terrible and dear,
Swift be thy flight!

Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Star-inwrought;

Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day,
Kiss her until she be wearied out;
Then wander o'er city and sea and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand, -
Come, long-sought!

When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;

When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turned to her rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,

I sighed for thee !

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 rear 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.

FROM CHILDE HAROLD."

'Tis night, when Meditation bids us feel We once have loved, though love is at an end: The heart, lone mourner of its baffled zeal, Though friendless now, will dream it had a friend.

Who with the weight of years would wish to bend, When Youth itself survives young Love and joy? Alas! when mingling souls forget to blend, Death hath but little left him to destroy! Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy?

Thus bending o'er the vessel's laving side, To gaze on Dian's wave-reflected sphere, The soul forgets her schemes of Hope and Pride, And flies unconscious o'er each backward year. None are so desolate but something dear, Dearer than self, possesses or possessed A thought, and claims the homage of a tear; A flashing pang! of which the weary breast Would still, albeit in vain, the heavy heart divest.

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion
dwell,

And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean,
This is not solitude; 't is but to hold
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her
stores unrolled.

Night is the time for dreams :

The gay romance of life,

When truth that is, and truth that seems,

Mix 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, and 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 died when 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, Summoned to die by Cæsar's ghost.

Night is the time to think :

When, from the eye, the soul Takes flight; and on the utmost brink Of yonder starry pole

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.

SPRING.

FROM "IN MEMORIAM."

DIP down upon the northern shore,
O sweet new-year, delaying long :
Thou doest expectant Nature wrong;
Delaying long, delay no more.

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 fugitive,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!

DAVID GRAY.