TAND here by my side and turn, I pray, STAN On the lake below thy gentle eyes; See how in a living swarm they come Rush prone from the sky like summer hail. Dissolved in the dark and silent lake. Here delicate snow-stars, out of the cloud, That whiten by night the Milky Way; There broader and burlier masses fall; The sullen water buries them all, Flake after flake,All drowned in the dark and silent lake. And some, as on tender wings they glide Come clinging along their unsteady way; As friend with friend, or husband with wife, Makes hand in hand the passage of life; Each mated flake Soon sinks in the dark and silent lake. Lo! while we are gazing, in swifter haste As, myriads by myraids madly chased, They fling themselves from their shadowy height. The fair, frail creatures of middle sky, What speed they make, with their grave so nigh: Flake after flake To lie in the dark and silent lake! I see in thy gentle eyes a tear; They turn to me in sorrowful thought; Thou thinkest of friends, the good and dear, Who were for a time, and now are not; Like these fair children of cloud and frost, That glisten a moment and then are lost,— Flake after flake, All lost in the dark and silent lake A sunbeam falls from the opening skies. But the hurrying host that flew between The cloud and the water no more is seen; Flake after flake At rest in the dark and silent lake. -William Cullen Bryant. A The Snow Storm. NNOUNCED by all the trumpets of the sky, Come see the north-wind's masonry! Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work -Ralph Waldo Emerson. Sunset. [From "Childe Harolde."] 'HE moon is up, and yet it is not night: THE Sunset divides the sky with her; a sea A single star is at her side, and reigns Nature reclaimed her order: gently flows Which streams upon her stream, and glassed within its glows, Filled with the face of heaven, which, from afar, And now they change; a paler shadow strews The last still loveliest, till 'tis gone-and all is gray. 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, Paving that gorgeous dome, So fair so wonderful a sight As Mab's ethereal palace could afford. Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted Looked o'er the immense of heaven. -Percy Bysshe Shelley. Evening. (From "Don Juan.") That heavenliest hour of heaven is worthiest thee! Sweet hour of twilight! in the solitude Evergreen forest; which Boccaccio's lore 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 O Hesperus! thou bringest all good things,- 'HE day is done, and the darkness THE Falls from the wing of Night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight. I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist; And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me, That my soul cannot resist; A feeling of sadness and longing As the mist resembles the rain. Life's endless toil and endeavor; Whose songs gushed from his heart, Of wonderful melodies. Such songs have power to quiet Then read from the treasured volume And lend to the rhyme of the poet The beauty of thy voice. And the night shall be filled with music —H. W. Longfellow. The heart, lone mourner of its baffled zeal, 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. To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been; To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, With the wild flock that never needs a fold; Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean,This is not solitude; 'tis but to hold [unrolled. Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world's tired denizen With none who bless us, none whom we can bless, Minions of splendor shrinking from distress! None that, with kindred consciousness endued, If we were not, would seem to smile the less Of all that flattered, followed, sought, and sued; This is to be alone; this, this is solitude! -Lord Byron. OW beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh zephyrstbreathe in evening's ear Night. Were discord to the speaking quietude Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, To curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills, Robed in a garment of untrodden snow, A metaphor of peace-all form a scene |