Was round the horizon, and along the vales;
But the hill tops stood in a crystal air;
The cope of heaven was clear and deeply blue,
And not a cloud was visible. Towards the east
An atmosphere of golden light, that grew
Momently brighter, and intensely bright,
Proclaim'd the approaching sun. Now-now he comes:-
A dazzling point emerges from the sea;
It spreads;-it rises :-now it seems a dome
Of burning gold :-higher and rounder now
It mounts-it swells :-now like a huge balloon
Of light and fire, it rests upon the rim
Of waters; lingers there a moment ;—then—
Soars up.-
Exulting I stretch'd forth my arms,
And hail'd the king of summer. Every hill
Put on a face of gladness; every tree
Shook his green leaves in joy: the meadows laugh'd;
The deep glen, where it caught the amber beams,
Began to draw its misty veil aside,
And smile and glisten through its pearly tear;
The birds struck up their chorus; the young lambs
Scour'd over hill and meadow ;-all that lived
Look'd like a new creation, over-fill'd
With health and joy; nay, e'en the inanimate earth
Seem'd coming into life.
But glorious far
Beyond all else the mighty God of light
Mounting the crystal firmament: no eye
May look upon his overwhelming pomp:
Power and majesty attend his steps;
Ocean and earth adoring gaze on him :—
In lone magnificence he takes his way
Through the bright solitude of heaven.
Was clear and purely blue, save the broad path
Where the sunbeams danc'd on the heaving billows,
That seem'd a high-road, paved with atom suns,
Where, on celestial errands, to and fro,
"Tween heaven and earth might gods or angels walk.
All round and through the spaces of creation
No hiding-place of the least air, or earth,
Or sea, invisible, untrod, unrain'd on,
Contains a thing alone. Not e'en the bird,
That can go up the labyrinthine winds
Between its pinions, and pursues the summer,-
Not even the great serpent of the billows,
Who winds him thrice around this planet's waist,Is by itself in joy or suffering.
White as a white sail on a dusky sea,
When half the horizon's clouded and half free,
Fluttering between the dun wave and the sea
In hope's last gleam, in man's extremity,
The anchor parts; but still her snowy sail
Attracts our eye amidst the rudest gale,
Though every wave she climbs divides us more,
The heart still follows from the loneliest shore.
Wedlock joins nothing if it join not hearts;
Marriage was never meant for coats of arms;
Heraldry flourishes on metal, silk,
Or wood. Examine as you will the blood,
No painting on't is there!-as red, as warm,
The Peasant's as the Noble's!
I see a wretched isle that ghost-like stands
Wrapt in its mist-shroud in the wintry main;
And now a cheerless gleam of red-plough'd lands,
O'er which a crow flies heavy in the rain.
Upward steals the life of man,
As the sunshine from the wall,
From the wall into the sky,
From the roof along the spire;
Ah, the souls of them that die
Are but sunbeams lifted higher.
THE SORROWS OF CHILDHOOD.
The tear down childhood's cheek that flows,
Is like the dew-drop on the rose;
When next the summer breeze comes by,
And waves the bush, the flower is dry.
THE SPIRIT OF PHILANTHROPY.
A sense of an earnest will
To help the lowly living,
And a terrible heart-thrill,
If you have no power of giving;
An arm of aid to the weak,
A friendly hand to the friendless,
Kind words, so short to speak,
But whose echo is endless:
The world is wide, these things are small,
They may be nothing, but they are all.
The primal duties shine aloft like stars,
The charities that soothe and heat and bless,
Lie scatter'd at the feet of men like flowers.
WORDSWORTH.
Time hath laid his hand
Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it,
But as a harper lays his open palm
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.
Although her loveliness should ne'er be seen
By human eyes, or praised by human tongues.
The cataract exults among the hills,
And wears its crown of rainbows all alone.
Libel the ocean on his tawny sands;
Write verses in his praise ;-the unmoved sea
Erases both alike. Alas for man!
Unless his fellows can behold his deeds
He cares not to be great.
Possessions vanish, and opinions change,
And passions hold a fluctuating seat:
But, by the storms of circumstance unshaken,
And subject neither to eclipse nor wane,
Duty exists; immutably survives,
For our support, the measures and the forms
Which an abstract intelligence supplies;
Whose kingdom is where time and space are not.
His thoughts are so much higher than his state
That, like a mountain hanging o'er a hut,
They chill and darken it.
Envy detects the spots in the clear orb of light,
And Love, the little stars in the gloomiest saddest night.
R. C. TRENCH.
You've sat the night out, Masters! See, the moon
Lies stranded on the pallid coast of morn.
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