Sapless, grey, and ivy dun,
Round stones that never kiss the sun,
To the sandhills of the sea,
Where the earliest violets be.

Now the last day of many days,
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise Memory, and write its praise,
And do thy wonted work and trace
The epitaph of glory fled :
For the Earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the Heaven's brow.

We wandered to the Pine Forest
That skirts the Ocean's foam,
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.

The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the woods, and on the deep,
The smile of Heaven lay.

It seemed as if the day were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which shed to earth above the sun
A light of Paradise.

We paused amid the Pines that stood
The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude,
With stems like serpents interlaced.

How calm it was the silence there

By such a chain was bound, That even the busy woodpecker Made stiller by her sound

The inviolable quietness;

The breath of peace we drew, With its soft motion made not less The calm that round us grew.

It seemed that from the remotest seat
Of the white mountain's waste,
To the bright flower beneath our feet,
A magic circle traced; -

A spirit interfused around,
A thinking silent life,

To momentary peace it bound

Our mortal Nature's strife.

For stillit seemea the centre of

The magie circle there, Was one whose being filled with love The breathless atmosphere.

Were not the crocusses that grew
Under that ilex tree,

As beautiful in scent and hue
As ever fed the bee?

We stood beside the pools that lie
Under the forest bough,
And each seemed like a sky

Gulphed in a world below;

A purple firmament of light,

Which in the dark earth lay,
More boundless than the depth of night,
And clearer than the day-

In which the massy forests grew,
As in the upper air,

More perfect both in shape and hue
Than any waving there.

Like one beloved, the scene had lent
To the dark water's breast

Its every leaf and lineament

With that clear truth expressed.

There lay far glades and neighbouring lawn,
And through the dark green crowd
The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Under a speckled cloud.

Sweet views, which in our world above
Can never well be seen,

Were imaged by the water's love
Of that fair forest green.

And all was interfused beneath
Within an Elysium air,

An atmosphere without a breath,
A silence sleeping there.

Until a wandering wind crept by,
Like an unwelcome thought,

Which from my mind's too faithful eye
Blots thy bright image out.

L

For thou art good and dear and kind,
The forest ever green,

But less of peace in S's mind,
Than calm in waters seen.

February 2, 1822.

TO NIGHT.

SWIFTLY walk over the western wave,

Spirit of Night!

Out of the misty eastern cave,

Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear,-
Swift be thy flight!

Wrap thy form in a mantle grey,
Star-inwrought!

Blind with thine hair the eyes of day,
Kiss her until she be wearied out,

Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,

Touching all with thine opiate wand-
Come, long sought!

When I arose and saw the dawn,

I sighed for thee;

When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,

And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,

I sighed for thee.

Thy brother Death came, and cried,
Wouldst thou me?

Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmured like a noon-tide bee,

Shall I nestle near thy side ?
Wouldst thou me?-And I replied,
No, not thee !

THY sun is set; the swallows are asleep;

The boats are flitting fast in the grey air; The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep, And evening's breath, wandering here and there Over the quivering surface of the stream, Wakes not one ripple from its silent dream.

There is no dew on the dry grass to-night,
Nor damp within the shadow of the trees;
The wind is intermitting, dry, and light;
And in the inconstant motion of the breeze
The dust and straws are driven up and down,
And whirled about the pavement of the town.