To other thoughts by yonder throstle wooed,

All this long eve, so balmy and se

rene,

Have I been gazing on the western sky,

And its pecular tint of yellow green:

And still I gaze-and with how blank an eye!

And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,

That give away their motion to the stars;

Those stars, that glide behind them or between,

Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:

Yon crescent moon as fixed as if it grew

In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;

I see them all so excellently fair,
I see, not feel how beautiful they are!

My genial spirits fail;
And what can these avail
To lift the smothering weight from
off my breast?

It were a vain endeavor, Though I should gaze forever On that green light that lingers in the west:

I may not hope from outward forms to win

The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

There was a time when, though my path was rough,

This joy within me dallied with distress,

And all misfortunes were but as the stuff

Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness:

For hope grew round me, like the twining vine.

And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine.

But now afflictions bow me down to earth:

Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth,

But oh! each visitation Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,

Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form!

Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,

How silently! Around thee and above

around my mind,

Reality's dark dream!

I turn from you, and listen to the

With groans of trampled men, with smarting wounds At once they groan with pain, and

shudder with the cold! But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence!

And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd,

With groans, and tremulous shudder

ings-all is over —

It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud!

A tale of less affright,

And tempered with delight, As Otway's self had framed the tender lay,

'Tis of a little child

Upon a lonesome wild,

Not far from home, but she hath lost her way:

And now moans low in bitter grief and fear,

And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear.

black,

An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,

As with a wedge! But when I look again,

It is thine own calm home, thy crys

tal shrine,

Thy habitation from eternity! O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee,

Till thou, still present to the bodily

sense,

Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer

I worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,

So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,

Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy:

Till the dilating soul, enwrapt, transfused,

Into the mighty vision passing

there

As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven!

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise

Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,

Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake,

Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven

Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun

Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers

Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?—

God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,

Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!

God! sing ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice!

Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!

And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,

And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!

Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!

Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain

storm!

Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!

Ye signs and wonders of the elements! Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!

Thou too, hoar mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,

Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast

Thou too again, stupendous moun

tain! thou

That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low

In adoration, upward from thy base Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,

To rise before me- Rise, O ever

rise,

Rise like a cloud of incense, from the

earth!

trate lie.

Love too will sink and die.

But Love is subtle, and doth proof derive

From her own life that Hope is yet alive;

And bending o'er with soul-transfusing eyes,

And the soft murmurs of the mother dove,

Woos back the fleeting spirit and half-supplies;

Thus Love repays to Hope what
Hope first gave to Love.
Yet haply there will come a weary
day

When overtasked at length Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way.

Then with a statue's smile, a statue's strength,

like;

Friendship is a sheltering tree;
O! the joys, that came down shower-
like,

Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,
Ere I was old.

Ere I was old? Ah, woful ere, Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!

O Youth! for years so many and

sweet,

'Tis known, that thou and I were

one,

I'll think it but a fond conceit
It cannot be, that thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet tolled:-
And thou wert aye a masker bold!
What strange disguise hast now put

on,