Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud, instead, and ever-during dark,
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank

Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.

MILTON.

The whistling ploughman stalks afield; and, hark!

Down the rough slope the ponderous wagon rings;

Through rustling corn the hare astonished springs;

Slow tolls the village-clock the drowsy hour; The partridge bursts away on whirring wings; Deep mourns the turtle in sequestered bower, And shrill lark carols clear from her aerial tower. JAMES BEATTIE.

PACK CLOUDS AWAY.

PACK clouds away, and welcome day,
With night we banish sorrow;
Sweet air, blow soft; mount, lark, aloft,
To give my love good morrow.
Wings from the wind to please her mind,
Notes from the lark I'll borrow :
Bird, prune thy wing; nightingale, sing,
To give my love good morrow.
To give my love good morrow,
Notes from them all I'll borrow.

Wake from thy nest, robin red breast,
Sing, birds, in every furrow;
And from each hill let music shrill

Give my fair love good morrow.
Blackbird and thrush in every bush,

Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow,
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves,
Sing my fair love good morrow.
To give my love good morrow,

Sing, birds, in every furrow.

THE SABBATH MORNING.

WITH silent awe I hail the sacred morn,
That slowly wakes while all the fields are still!
A soothing calm on every breeze is borne ;
A graver murmur gurgles from the rill;
And echo answers softer from the hill;
And softer sings the linnet from the thorn:
The skylark warbles in a tone less shrill.
Hail, light serene! hail, sacred Sabbath morn!
The rooks float silent by in airy drove;
The sun a placid yellow lustre throws;
The gales that lately sighed along the grove
Have hushed their downy wings in dead repose;
The hovering rack of clouds forgets to move,
So smiled the day when the first morn arose !

DR. JOHN LEYDEN.

MORNING.

THOMAS HEYWOOD.

FROM THE MINSTREL."

BUT who the melodies of morn can tell?
The wild brook babbling down the mountain

side;

The lowing herd; the sheepfold's simple bell; The pipe of early shepherd dim descried In the lone valley; echoing far and wide The clamorous horn along the cliffs above; The hollow murmur of the ocean tide; The hum of bees, the linnet's lay of love, And the full choir that wakes the universal grove.

The cottage curs at early pilgrim bark; Crowned with her pail the tripping milkmaid

sings;

BENEATH a shivering canopy reclined,
Of aspen-leaves that wave without a wind,
I love to lie, when lulling breezes stir
The spiry cones that tremble on the fir;
Or wander mid the dark-green fields of broom,
When peers in scattered tufts the yellow bloom;
Or trace the path with tangling furze o'errun,
When bursting seed-bells crackle in the sun,
And pittering grasshoppers, confus'dly shrill,
Pipe giddily along the glowing hill :
Sweet grasshopper, who lov'st at noon to lie
Serenely in the green-ribbed clover's eye,
To sun thy filmy wings and emerald vest,
Unseen thy form, and undisturbed thy rest,
Oft have I listening mused the sultry day,
And wondered what thy chirping song might say,
When naught was heard along the blossomed lea,
To join thy music, save the listless bee.

The chime of bells remote, the murmuring sea, The song of birds in whispering copse and wood, The distant voice of children's thoughtless glee, And maiden's song, are all one voice of good. Amid the leaves' green mass a sunny play

Of flash and shadow stirs like inward life; The ship's white sail glides onward far away, Unhaunted by a dream of storm or strife. JOHN STERLING,

THE MIDGES DANCE ABOON THE BURN.

THE midges dance aboon the burn;

The dews begin to fa';

The pairtricks down the rushy holm
Set up their e'ening ca'.

Now loud and clear the black bird's sang

Rings through the briery shaw, While, flitting gay, the swallows play Around the castle wa'.

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.

THE EVENING WIND.

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;

And they who stand about the sick man's bed

Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,

And softly part his curtains to allow
Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.

Go, but the circle of eternal change,

Which is the life of nature, shall restore, With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range, Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more. Sweet odors in the sea air, sweet and strange,

Shall tell the homesick mariner of the shore; And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

THE EVENING STAR.

STAR that bringest home the bee,
And sett'st the weary laborer free!
If any star shed peace, 't is thou,

That send'st it from above,
Appearing when heaven's breath and brow
Are sweet as hers we love.

Come to the luxuriant skies,
Whilst the landscape's odors rise,
Whilst far-off lowing herds are heard,
And songs, when toil is done,
From cottages whose smoke unstirred
Curls yellow in the sun.

Star of love's soft interviews,
Parted lovers on thee muse;
Their remembrancer in heaven
Of thrilling vows thou art,
Too delicious to be riven
By absence from the heart.

THOMAS CAMPBELL,

CAPE-COTTAGE AT SUNSET.

WE stood upon the ragged rocks,

When the long day was nearly done; The waves had ceased their sullen shocks, And lapped our feet with murmuring tone, And o'er the bay in streaming locks

Blew the red tresses of the sun.

Along the west the golden bars

Still to a deeper glory grew; Above our heads the faint, few stars Looked out from the unfathomed blue; And the fair city's clamorous jars Seemed melted in that evening hue.

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. W. B. GLAZIER.

SUNSET.

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.

EVENING.

FROM "DON JUAN."

AVE Maria! o'er the earth and sea,

That heavenliest hour of heaven is worthiest thee!

Ave Maria! blessed 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, While swung

the deep bell in the distant tower Or the faint dying day hymn stole aloft, And not a breath crept through the rosy air, And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer.

Ave Maria! 't is the hour of prayer!

Ave Maria! 't is the hour of love! Ave Maria! may our spirits dare

Look up to thine and to thy Son's above! Ave Maria! O that face so fair!

Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty dove,

What though 't is but a pictured image?

strike, —

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 the 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:
"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.

Thy brother Death came, and cried, "Wouldst thou me?"

Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, Murmured like a noontide bee, "Shall I nestle near thy side? Wouldst thou me?". And I replied, "No, not thee !"

Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon,

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.

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? If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?

NIGHT.

BLANCO WHITE.

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;
Yon darksome rocks, whence icicles depend,
So stainless that their white and glittering spires
Tinge not the moon's pure beam; yon castle steep,
Whose banner hangeth o'er the timeworn tower
So idly that rapt fancy deemeth it
A metaphor of peace-all form a scene
Where musing solitude might love to lift