MIDNIGHT AND MOONSHINE.

ALL earth below, all heaven above,

In this calm hour, are filled with Love;
All sights, all sounds have throbbing hearts,

In which its blessed fountain starts,

And gushes forth so fresh and free,

Like a soul-thrilling melody.

Look! look! the land is sheathed in light,
And mark the winding stream,

How, creeping round yon distant height,
Its rippling waters gleam.

Its waters flash through leaf and flower

Oh! merrily they go;

Like living things, their voices pour

Dim music as they flow.

Sinless and pure they seek the sea,

As souls pant for eternity;—

Heaven speed their bright course till they sleep In the broad bosom of the deep.

High in mid air, on seraph wing,
The paley moon is journeying

In stillest path of stainless blue;
Keen, curious stars are peering through
Heaven's arch this hour; they doat on her

With perfect love; nor can she stir
Within her vaulted halls a pace,

Ere rushing out, with joyous face,
These Godkins of the sky

Smile, as she glides in loveliness;
While every heart beats high

With passion, and breaks forth to bless
Her loftier divinity.

It is a smile worth worlds to win

So full of love, so void of sin,

The smile she sheds on these tall trees,

Stout children of past centuries.

Each little leaf, with feathery light,

Is margined marvellously;

Moveless all droop, in slumberous quiet; How beautiful they be!

And blissful as soft infants lulled
Upon a mother's knee.

Far down yon dell the melody
Of a small brook is audible;
The shadow of a thread-like tone-
It murmurs over root and stone,

Yet sings of very love its fill;

And hark! even now, how sweetly shrill It trolls its fairy glee,

Skywards unto that pure bright one;

Oh! gentle heart hath she,

For, leaning down to earth, with pleasure, She lists its fond and prattling measure.

It is indeed a silent night

Of peace, of joy, and purest light;—
No angry breeze, in surly tone,
Chides the old forest till it moan;

Or breaks the dreaming of the owl,

That, warder-like, on yon grey tower, Feedeth his melancholy soul

With visions of departed power;

And o'er the ruins Time hath sped,

Nods sadly with his spectral head.

And lo! even like a giant wight Slumbering his battle toils away, The sleep-locked city, gleaming bright With many a dazzling ray,

Lies stretched in vastness at my feet;
Voiceless the chamber and the street,
And echoless the hall;-

Had Death uplift his bony hand
And smote all living on the land,
No deeper quiet could fall.

In this religious calm of night,
Behold, with finger tall and bright,

Each tapering spire points to the sky,

In a fond, holy extacy;—

Strange monuments they be of mind—

Of feelings dim and undefined,
Shaping themselves, yet not the less,

In forms of passing loveliness.

O God! this is an holy hour:-
Thy breath is o'er the land;

I feel it in each little flower

Around me where I stand

In all the moonshine scattered fair,
Above, below me, every where-
In every dew-bead glistening sheen,
leaf and blade of green-

In

every

And in this silence grand and deep,
Wherein thy blessed creatures sleep.

The trees send forth their shadows long In gambols o'er the earth,

To chase each other's innocence

In quiet, holy mirth;

O'er the glad meadows fast they throng,

Shapes multiform and tall;

And lo! for them the chaste moonbeam, With broadest light, doth fall.

Mad phantoms all, they onward glideOn swiftest wind they seem to ride

O'er meadow, mount, and stream: