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163

NIGHT IN THE DESERT.

NIGHT IN THE DESERT.

How beautiful is night!

A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,
Breaks the serene of heaven:

In full orbed glory yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths:
Beneath her steady ray

The desert-circle spreads,

Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.

How beautiful is night!

R. Southey.

TO THE MOON.

ART thou pale for weariness

Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless

Among the stars that have a different birth,—
And ever changing, like a joyless eye

That finds no object worth its constancy?

P. B. Shelley.

THE MOON.

169

THE MOON.

How beautiful the Queen of Night, on high Her way pursuing among scatter'd clouds, Where, ever and anon, her head she shrouds Hidden from view in dense obscurity!

But look, and to the watchful eye

A brightening edge will indicate that soon
We shall behold the struggling Moon

Break forth,—again to walk the clear blue sky.

W. Wordsworth.

THE WORLD'S WANDERERS.

TELL me, thou star, whose wings of light
Speed thee in thy fiery flight,

In what cavern of the night

Will thy pinions close now!

Tell me, moon, thou pale and grey
Pilgrim of heaven's homeless way,
In what depth of night or day
Seekest thou repose now?

Weary wind, who wanderest
Like the world's rejected guest,
Hast thou still some secret nest

On the tree or billow?

P. B. Shelley.

170

HYMN TO THE NIGHT.

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!

H. W. Longfellow.

DATUR HORA QUIETI.

171

DATUR HORA QUIETI.

THE Sun upon the lake is low,
The wild birds hush their song,
The hills have evening's deepest glow,
Yet Leonard tarries long.

Now all whom varied toil and care
From home and love divide,
In the calm sunset may repair
Each to the loved one's side.

The noble dame on turret high,
Who waits her gallant knight,
Looks to the western beam to spy
The flash of armour bright.
The village maid, with hand on brow
The level ray to shade,

Upon the footpath watches now

For Colin's darkening plaid.

Now to their mates the wild swans row,

By day they swam apart,

And to the thicket wanders slow

The hind beside the hart.

The woodlark at his partner's side
Twitters his closing song-

All meet whom day and care divide,
But Leonard tarries long!

Sir W. Scott.

172

MEETING AT NIGHT.

MEETING AT NIGHT.

I.

THE grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed in the slushy sand.

2.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at a pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Robert Browning.

PARTING AT MORNING.

ROUND the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun look'd over the mountain's rim:
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.

R. Browning.

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