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And only they, of all below
Will to the long, last mansion go.

TO A LONELY BROOK.

As sad I bend me o'er thy babbling stream,
And watch thy current, memory's hand portrays
The faint-form'd scenes of dear departed days,
Like the fair forest by the moon's pale beam,
Dimly descried, yet lovely. I have worn
Upon thy banks the livelong hours away,
When sportive childhood sported through the day,
Joy'd at the opening splendour of the morn,
Or, as the twilight darken'd, heav'd the sigh,
Thinking of distant home; as down my cheek,
At the fond thought, slow stealing on, would speak
The silent eloquence of the full eye,

Dim are the long past days; yet still they please, As thy soft sounds, half heard on the inconstant breeze.

THE MID-DAY RETREAT.

But when the sun

Thomson.

Shakes from his noon-day throne the scattering

clouds,

E'en shooting listless languor through the deep; Then seek the bank, where flowering elders crowd, Where, scatter'd wild, the lily of the vale

Its balmy essence breathes; where cowslips hang
The dewy head; where purple violets lurk,
With all the lowly children of the shade;
Or lie reclin'd beneath yon spreading ash,
Hung o'er the steep; whence, borne on liquid
wing,

The sounding culver shoots; or where the hawk,
High in the beetling cliff, his aerie builds:
There let the classic page thy fancy lead
Through rural scenes, such as the Mantuan swain
Paints in the matchless harmony of song;
Or catch, thyself, the landscape gliding swift
Athwart Imagination's vivid eye;

Or by the vocal woods and waters lull'd,
And lost in lonely musing, in the dream
Confused of careless solitude, where mix
Ten thousand wandering images of things,
Soothe every gust of passion into peace;
All but the swellings of the soften'd heart,
That waken, not disturb, the tranquil mind.
See where the winding vale its lavish stores
Irriguous spreads. See how the lily drinks
The latent rill, scarce oozing through the grass
Of growth luxuriant; or the humid bank
In fair profusion decks. Long let us walk
Where the breeze blows from yon extended field
Of blossom'd beans; Arabia cannot boast

A fuller gale of joy than, liberal, thence

Breathes through the sense, and takes the ravish'd soul.

EVENING.

Milton.

Now came still evening on; and twilight grey
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 pleas'd. Now glow'd the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rose brightest; till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length,
Apparent queen, unveil'd her peerless light,
And o'er the dark, her silver mantle threw.
When Adam, first of men, thus Eve bespake,
The general mother of the human race.

These lights, though unbeheld in deep of night,
Shine not in vain; nor, think, though men were

none,

That heaven would want spectators, God want praise;

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep.
AH these, with ceaseless praise, his works behold
Both day and night: how often from the steep
Of echoing hill or thicket, have we heard
Celestial voices to the midnight air
(Sole, or responsive to each other's note)
Singing their great Creator? Oft in bands
While they keep watch, or nightly rounding, walk

With heavenly touch of instrumental sounds
In full harmonic number join'd, their songs
Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to heaven.
Thus talking, hand in hand, along they pass'd
On to their blissful bower. It was a place
Chose by the sovereign Planter, when he fram'd
All things to man's delightful use: the roof
Of thickest covert, was inwoven shade,
Laurel and myrtle; and what higher grew
Of firm and fragrant leaf; on either side
Acanthus, and each odorous bushy shrub
Fenced up the verdant wall: each beauteous flow'r,
Iris all hues, roses and jessamin,

Rais'd high their flourishing heads between, and wrought

Mosaic: underfoot the violet,

Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay,

Broider'd the ground; more colour'd than with stone
Of costliest emblem. Other creature here,
Beast, bird, insect, or worm, durst enter none.

Thus, at their shady lodge arriv'd, both stood,
Both turn'd, and under open sky ador'd
The God that made both sky, earth, air, and heav'n,
Which they beheld; the moon's resplendent globe,
The starry pole: Thou also mad'st the night,
Maker omnipotent! and Thou the day,
Which we, in our appointed work employ'd,
Have finish'd, happy in our mutual help;
And mutual love, the crown of all our bliss..

SONG OF THE EVENING HOUR.

LAST of the hours which track the fading day,
I move along the realms of twilight air,
And hear remote the choral song decay,

Of sister nymphs who dance around his car.
Then, as I follow through the azure void,

His partial splendour, from my straining eye, Sinks in the depths of space, my only guide His faint ray dawning on the farthest sky.

When fades along the west, the sun's last beam,
And weary, to the nether world he goes;
And mountain summits catch the purple gleam,
And slumbering ocean, faint and fainter grows.

Silent upon the world's broad shade I steal,

And o'er its turf I shed the healing dews,
And every favourite herb and flow'ret heal,
And all their fragrance on the air diffuse.

Where'er I move a tranquil pleasure reigns,
O'er all the scene the dusky tints I send ;
That forests wild, and mountains, stretching plains,
And peopled towns, in soft confusion blend.

Wide o'er the world, I waft the freshening wind
Low breathing thro' the woods, and dusky vale;
In whispers soft, which soothe the pensive mind
Of him, who loves my lonely steps to hail.

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