Thy joyous youth began — but not to fade.
When all the sister planets have decayed, When wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow, And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below; Thou, undismayed, shalt o'er the ruins smile,
And light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile!
Summer Evening.-THOMPSON.
Confessed from yonder slow extinguished clouds, All ether softening, sober Evening takes
Her wonted station in the middle air;
A thousand shadows at her beck.
She sends on Earth; then that of deeper dye Steals soft behind; and then a deeper still, In circle following circle, gathers round, To close the face of things. A fresher gale Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream, Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn; While the quail clamors for his running mate. Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze, A whitening shower of vegetable down Amusive floats. The kind impartial care Of Nature nought disdains: thoughtful to feed Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year, From field to field the feathered seeds she wings.
His folded flock secure, the shepherd home Hies, merry-hearted; and by turns relieves The ruddy milk-maid of her brimming pail; The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart, Unknowing what the joy-mix't anguish means,
Sincerely loves, by that best language shown Of cordial glances, and obliging deeds. Onward they pass, o'er many a panting height, And valley sunk and unfrequented; where At fall of eve the fairy people throng, In various game and revelry, to pass The summer night, as village stories tell. But far about they wander from the grave Of him, whom his ungentle fortune urged Against his own sad breast to lift the hand Of impious violence. The lonely tower
Is also shunned; whose mournful chambers hold, So night-struck fancy dreams, the yelling ghost.
Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge, The glow-worm lights his gem; and through the dark, A moving radiance twinkles. Evening yields The world to Night; not in her winter robe Of massy Stygian woof, but loose arrayed In mantle dun. A faint erroneous ray, Glanced from the imperfect surfaces of things, Flings half an image on the straining eye; While waving woods, and villages, and streams, And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long retained The ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene, Uncertain if beheld.
The True Philosopher.-POLLOK.
Nor yet in common glory blazing, stood The true philosopher, decided friend Of truth and man. Determined foe of all Deception, calm, collected, patient, wise,
And humble, undeceived by outward shape Of things, by fashion's revelry uncharmed, By honor unbewitched- he left the chase Of vanity, and all the quackeries
Of life, to fools and heroes, or whoe'er
Desired them; and with reason, much despised, Traduced, yet heavenly reason, to the shade Retired retired, but not to dream, or build Of ghostly fancies, seen in the deep noon Of sleep, ill-balanced theories; retired, But did not leave mankind; in pity, not
In wrath, retired; and still, though distant, kept
His eye on men; at proper angle took His stand to see them better, and, beyond The clamor which the bells of folly made, That most had hung about them, to consult
With nature, how their madness might be cured,
And how their true substantial comforts might Be multiplied. Religious man! what God By prophets, priests, evangelists, revealed Of sacred truth, he thankfully received, And, by its light directed, went in search
Before him, darkness fled; and all The goblin tribe, that hung upon the breasts Of Night, and haunted still the moral gloom With shapeless forms, and blue, infernal lights, And indistinct and devilish whisperings,
That the miseducated fancies vexed
Of superstitious men Dispersed, invisible. Where'er he went, This lesson still he taught, to fear no ill But sin, no being but Almighty God. All-comprehending sage! too hard alone For him was man's salvation; all besides, Of use or comfort, that distinction made
Between the desperate savage, scarcely raised Above the beast whose flesh he ate, undressed, And the most polished of the human race, Was product of his persevering search. Religion owed him much, as from the false She suffered much; for still his main design, In all his contemplations, was to trace The wisdom, providence, and love of God, And to his fellows, less observant, show
Them forth. From prejudice redeemed, with all His passions still, above the common world, Sublime in reason and in aim sublime, He sat, and on the marvellous works of God Sedately thought; now glancing up his eye, Intelligent, through all the starry dance, And penetrating now the deep remote Of central causes in the womb opaque Of matter hid; now, with inspection nice, Entering the mystic labyrinths of the mind, Where thought, of notice ever shy, behind
Thought, disappearing, still retired; and still,
Thought meeting thought, and thought awakening thought,
And mingling still with thought in endless maze, - Bewildered observation; now, with eye Yet more severely purged, looking far down Into the heart, where passion wove a web
Of thousand, thousand threads, in grain and hue All different; then upward venturing whiles, But reverently, and in his hand, the light Revealed, near the eternal Throne, he gazed, Philosophizing less than worshipping. Most truly great! his intellectual strength And knowledge, vast, to men of lesser mind, Seemed infinite; yet, from his high pursuits, And reasonings most profound, he still returned
Home, with an humbler and a warmer heart: And none so lowly bowed before his God, As none so well His awful majesty And goodness comprehended; or so well His own dependency and weakness knew.
How glorious now, with vision purified
At the Essential Truth, entirely free
From error, he, investigating still, –
For knowledge is not found, unsought, in heaven,- From world to world, at pleasure, roves on wing Of golden ray upborne; or, at the feet
Of heaven's most ancient sages, sitting, hears
New wonders of the wondrous works of God!
Morning Hymn to Mont Blanc.-COLERIDGE.
Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course? so long he seems to pause On thy bald, awful head, O sovereign Blanc ! The Arve and Aveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form! Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, How silently! Around thee and above Deep is the air and dark, - substantial black, ·
An ebon mass; methinks thou piercest it, As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal 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.
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