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Beneath the golden gloamin' sky
The mavis mends her lay;

The redbreast pours his sweetest strains
To charm the lingering day;
While weary yeldrins seem to wail
Their little nestlings torn,
The merry wren, frae den to den,
Gaes jinking through the thorn.
The roses fauld their silken leaves,
The foxglove shuts its bell;
The honeysuckle and the birk
Spread fragrance through the dell.
Let others crowd the giddy court
Of mirth and revelry,

The simple joys that nature yields
Are dearer far to me.

ROBERT TANNAHILL.

DAY IS DYING.

FROM "THE SPANISH GYPSY."

DAY is dying! Float, O song,
Down the westward river,
Requiem chanting to the Day,
Day, the mighty Giver.

Pierced by shafts of Time he bleeds,
Melted rubies sending
Through the river and the sky,
Earth and heaven blending;

All the long-drawn earthy banks
Up to cloud-land lifting :
Slow between them drifts the swan,
'Twixt two heavens drifting.

THE EVENING WIND.

SPIRIT that breathest through my lattice: thou That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day! Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow; Thou hast been out upon the deep at play, Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,

Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray,

And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee
To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea!

Nor I alone, - a thousand bosoms round
Inhale thee in the fulness of delight;
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
Livelier, at coming of the wind of night;
And languishing to hear thy welcome sound,

Lies the vast inland, stretched beyond the sight. Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth, God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!

Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest;

Curl the still waters, bright with stars; and

rouse

The wide old wood from his majestic rest,

Summoning, from the innumerable boughs, The strange deep harmonies that haunt his breast. Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass, And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass.

Stoop o'er the place of graves, and softly sway The sighing herbage by the gleaming stone, That they who near the churchyard willows stray, And listen in the deepening gloom, alone, May think of gentle souls that passed away,

Like thy pure breath, into the vast unknown, Sent forth from heaven among the sons of men, And gone into the boundless heaven again.

The faint old man shall lean his silver head

To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, And dry the moistened curls that overspread

His temples, while his breathing grows more

deep;

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O sunset sky! O purple tide!

O friends to friends that closer pressed! Those glories have in darkness died, And ye have left my longing breast. I could not keep you by my side, Nor fix that radiance in the west.

WILLIAM BELCHER GLAZIER.

SUNSET.

FROM "QUEEN MAB."

IF solitude hath ever led thy steps
To the wild ocean's echoing shore,
And thou hast lingered there
Until the sun's broad orb
Seemed resting on the burnished wave,
Thou must have marked the lines

Of purple gold that motionless

Hung o'er the sinking sphere:

Thou must have marked the billowy clouds, Edged with intolerable radiancy,

Towering like rocks of jet

Crowned with a diamond wreath.
And yet there is a moment,
When the sun's highest point

Peeps like a star o'er ocean's western edge,
When those far clouds of feathery gold,
Shaded with deepest purple, gleam

Like islands on a dark-blue sea;

Then has thy fancy soared above the earth,
And furled its wearied wing

Within the Fairy's fane.

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.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

NIGHTFALL: A PICTURE.

Low burns the summer afternoon;
A mellow lustre lights the scene;
And from its smiling beauty soon
The purpling shade will chase the sheen

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FROM "PARADISE LOST," BOOK IV.

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.

EVENING.

FROM "DON JUAN.

MILTON.

AVE Maria! o'er the earth and sea,
That heavenliest hour of heaven is worthiest thee:

Ave Maria! blessèd be the hour,

The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft,

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The shrill cicalas, people of the pine,

TO DELIA.

CARE-CHARMER Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born:
Relieve my languish and restore the light;
With dark forgetting of my care, return,
And let the day be time enough to mourn
The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth:
Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn
Without the torment of the night's untruth.
Cease dreams, the images of day desires,
Never let rising sun approve you liars,
To model forth the passions of the morrow;
To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow.
Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain,
And never wake to feel the day's disdain.

SAMUEL DANIEL.

THE CAMP AT NIGHT.

FROM "THE ILIAD," BOOK VIII.

THE winds transferred into the friendly sky Their supper's savor; to the which they sat delightfully,

And spent all night in open field; fires round about them shined.

As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind,

And stars shine clear, to whose sweet beams, Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and Of all steep hills and pinnacles, thrust up themhigh prospects, and the brows

mine,

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selves for shows,

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Sleep will come when thou art fled;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night,

Swift be thine approaching flight,

Come soon, soon!

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

NIGHT.

FROM "CHILDE HAROLD,' CANTO II.

'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.

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MYSTERIOUS Night! when our first parent knew
Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus, with the host of heaven, came,
And lo creation widened in man's view.
Who could have thought such darkness lay con-
cealed

Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find,
Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind!
Why do we then shun death with anxious strife!

Who with the weight of years would wish to If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life? 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.

JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE.

NIGHT.

FROM "QUEEN MAB."

How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh
Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear
Were discord to the speaking quietude
That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon
vault,

Studded with stars unutterably bright,
Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur
rolls,

Seems like a canopy which love has spread
To curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills,
Robed in a garment of untrodden snow;

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