Page images
PDF
EPUB

True, to the dream of Fancy, Ocean has His darker tints; but where the element That chequers not its usefulness to man

With casual terror? Scathes not Earth sometimes
Her children with Tartarean fires, or shakes
The shrieking cities, and with one last clang
Of bells for their own ruin, strews them flat
As riddled ashes-silent as the grave?
Walks not Contagion on the Air itself?
I should-old Ocean's Saturnalian days
And roaring nights of revelry and sport
With wreck and human woe-be loth to sing;
For they are few, and all their ills weigh light
Against his sacred usefulness, that bids
Our pensile globes revolve in purer air.

Here Morn and Eve with blushing thanks receive
Their freshening dews, gay fluttering breezes cool
Their wings to fan the brow of fevered climes,
And here the Spring dips down her emerald urn
For showers to glad the earth.

[graphic]

But long as man to parent Nature owns
Instinctive homage, and in times beyond
The power of thought to reach, bard after bard
Shall sing thy glory, BEATIFIC SEA.

SUNSET NEAR VENICE.

BY SHELLEY.

How beautiful is sunset when the glow
Of heaven descends upon a land like thee,
Thou paradise of exiles, Italy!

Thy mountains, seas, and vineyards, and the towers

Of cities they encircle !-It was ours

To stand on thee beholding it; and then

Just where we had dismounted, the Count's men
Were waiting for us with the gondola.

As those who pause on some delightful way,
Though bent on pleasant pilgrimage, we stood
Looking upon the evening and the flood,
Which lay between the city and the shore,
Paved with the image of the sky: the hoar
And airy Alps, towards the north, appeared,
Through mist, a heaven-sustaining bulwark,
reared

[graphic]
[graphic]

Between the east and west; and half the sky
Was roofed with clouds of rich emblazonry,
Dark purple at the zenith, which still grew
Down the steep west into a wondrous hue
Brighter than burning gold, even to the rent
Where the swift sun yet paused in his descent
Among the many-folded hills-they were
Those famous Eugunean Hills, which bear
As seen from Lido through the harbour piles
The likeness of a clump of peaked isles-
And then as if the earth and sea had been
Dissolved into one lake of fire, were seen,
Those mountains towering. as from waves of

flame,

Around the vaporous sun, from which there came
The inmost purple spirit of light, and made
Their very peaks transparent.
"Ere it fade,
Said my companion, "I will show you soon
A better station," So, o'er the lagune
We glided, and from that funeral bark

I leaned, and saw the city, and could mark
How from their many isles, in evening's gleam,
Its temples and its palaces did seem

Like fabrics of enchantment piled to heaven.

TRANQUILLITY OF NATURE.

BY MOORE.

How calm, how beautiful comes on
The stilly hour, when storms are gone;
When warring winds have died away,
And clouds, beneath the glancing ray,
Melt off, and leave the lands and sea
Sleeping in bright tranquillity.-
Fresh as if day again were born,
Again upon the lap of morn!

When the light blossoms, rudely torn
And scattered at the whirlwind's will,
Hang floating in the pure air still,
Filling it all with precious balm,
In gratitude for this sweet calm ;-
And every drop the thunder-showers
Have left upon the grass and flowers
Sparkles, as 'twere, that lightning-gem
Whose liquid flame is born of them!
When, 'stead of one unchanging breeze,
There blow a thousand gentle airs,
And each a different perfume bears,-
As if the loveliest plants and trees
Had vassal breezes of their own
To watch and wait on them alone,
And waft no other breath than theirs;

When the blue waters rise and fall,
In sleepy sunshine mantling all;
And even that swell the tempest leave
Is like the full and silent heaves
Of lovers' hearts, when newly blest,-
Too newly to be quite at rest.

THE APOLLO BELVIDERE.

BY MRS. HEMANS.

LORD of the day-star! how many words portray
Of thy chaste glory one reflected ray?
Whate'er the soul could dream, the hand could

trace,

Of regal dignity and heavenly grace;

Each purer effluence of the fair and bright,
Whose fitful gleams have broke on mortal sight;
Each bold idea, borrowed from the sky,
To vest the embodied form of Deity;
All, all in thee ennobled and refined,

Breathe and enchant, transcendently combined;
Son of Elysium! years and ages gone

Have bowed, in speechless homage, at thy throne,
And days unborn, and nations yet to be,
Shall gaze, absorbed in ecstacy, on thee!

« PreviousContinue »