EVENING RETROSPECT.

THE day had been a rainy day;
The hours in gloom had lagg'd away ;
A heavy mixture bent the flowers,

To earth each languid bloom was stooping, And birds, within their sullen bowers,

Like cell-imprison'd nuns, were drooping.

Now, 'twas the hour, when silent Eve

Her

mazy web begins to weave,

With woof of melancholy thought

When shadowy throngs by Recollection

Are to the passive spirit brought,

To claim a sigh, and cause reflection.

The sun reclined in western tent;
Dim vale and rocky battlement,

Empurpled by his regal gleams,

In Beauty's mellow flood were glowing; The woods breathed odours, and the streams In Music's holiest tone were flowing.

My footsteps gain'd a little hill,
Where, standing mute, I gazed my fill ;
Through far-stretch'd years mine eyes had not
(Alas! how Time, unmark'd, is gliding—)
Feasted on that delicious spot,

Where yet Youth's spirit seem'd presiding.

Each object had its story there;

The very feeling of the air

Unchanged, came back-the blossom'd trees

The aspect of the fields-the bleating,

Wide scatter'd flocks-and, over these,

Hills, that with heaven seem'd proudly meeting.

Like lava came the past-a flood

And turn'd to fire the rushing blood:

Departed hopes, Youth's vanish'd pride,

Το

Sprung forth, as springs the mountain river, the rubbish from its side

sweep

Into the oblivious sea for ever!

Methought, my spirit, in the track
Of former years, had wander'd back-
With gladden'd eyes, and beating heart,
I saw the fields of childhood blooming;
And felt its cloudless sunshine dart
Into my soul, its depths illuming.

Faces, alas! too long unseen,

(The veil of years or death between,) Lost friends again before me stood,

How thrilling was the welcome vision!

Life seem'd no more a solitude,

And Earth was clad in robes Elysian.

The blackbird sang a mellow song,
Deep was the cadence, deep and long;
Into
my heart of hearts, the note
With an electric power was stealing,
Days vanish'd far, hopes long forgot,

Loves sever'd, or suppress'd, revealing.

The buried and the absent came,
From out the dusk, in lines of flame;
Far scenes in pictured beauty gleam'd,
In boyhood's glow of magic glory,
And life seem'd-what at first it seem'd-
A fairy tale, an eastern story.

Upon the myrtle sate the Dove,

Earth own'd the sovereignty of Love;

I wonder'd in a world so fair,

How Woe could spread such ample pinion; How Hope should darken to Despair; Or Soul to Mammon own dominion.

I marvell'd much how Mind could bow
To earthward cravings, meanly low;
And sigh'd to think, that envious Time,
One after one, annuls our pleasures,
Till Age, regarding Youth's bright clime,
Is startled at the chasm it measures!

How long with arm on mossy tree,
In this engulphing reverie,

Pondering I stood, I cannot tell

So powerful was the spell subduing, Till startled by far curfew bell,

And Twilight's tints the hills embuing.

The sun had sunk; but brightly shone
Night's star within the south alone;
And thus I thought-when Life declines,

And Death's dark night is hovering o'er us, Undimm'd Hope's glorious planet shines,

And Faith to heaven mounts up before us!