Arabian sweets perfume the happy plains:
Above, beneath, around, enchantment reigns!
While yet the shades, on time's eternal scale,
With long vibration deepen o'er the vale;
While yet the songsters of the vocal grove,
With dying numbers tune the soul to love,
With joyful eyes th' attentive master sees
The auspicious omens of an eastern breeze.
Now radiant Vesper leads the starry train,
And night slow draws her veil o'er land and main;
Round the charged bowl the sailors form a ring;
By turns recount the wondrous tale, or sing;
As love or battle, hardships of the main,
Or genial wine, awake their homely strain :
Then some the watch of night alternate keep,
The rest lie buried in oblivious sleep.

Deep midnight now involves the livid skies,
While infant breezes from the shore arise.
The waning moon, behind a watery shroud,
Pale-glimmer'd o'er the long-protracted cloud.
A mighty ring around her silver throne,
With parting meteors crossed, portentous shone.
This in the troubled sky full oft prevails;
Oft deemed a signal of tempestuous gales.

A SPRING SABBATH WALK.

MOST earnest was his voice! most mild his look,
As with raised hands he blest his parting flock.
He is a faithful pastor of the poor;-

He thinks not of himself; his Master's words,
“Feed, feed my sheep,"* are ever at his heart,
The cross of Christ is aye before his eyes.
Oh! how I love with melted soul to leave

* John xxi. 17.

A SUMMER SABBATH WALK.

389.

The house of prayer, and wander in the fields
Alone! What though the opening spring be chill !
Although the lark, checked in his airy path,
Eke out his song, perched on the fallow clod,
That still o'ertops the blade! Although no branch
Have spread its foliage, save the willow-wand
That dips its pale leaves in the swollen stream!
What though the clouds oft lour! Their threats but end
In sunny showers, that scarcely fill the folds

Of moss-couched violet, or interrupt

The merle's dulcet pipe,-melodious bird!
He, hid behind the milk white sloe-thorn spray,
(Whose early flowers anticipate the leaf,)
Welcomes the time of buds, the infant year.

Sweet is the sunny nook to which my steps
Have brought me, hardly conscious where I roamed,
Unheeding where,--so lovely all around,
The works of God, arrayed in vernal smile.
Oft at this season, musing, I prolong

My devious range, till, sunk from view, the sun
Emblaze, with upward slanting ray, the breast
And wing unquivering of the wheeling lark,
Descending, vocal, from her latest flight;
While, disregardful of yon lonely star,—
The harbinger of chill night's glittering host,
Sweet Redbreast, Scotia's Philomela, chants,
In desultory strains, his evening hymn.

A SUMMER SABBATH WALK.

DELIGHTFUL is this loneliness! it calms

My heart pleasant the cool beneath these elms,
That throw across the stream a moveless shade!
Here nature in her midnoon whisper speaks;
How peaceful every sound!--the ring dove's plaint,
Moaned from the twilight centre of the grove,
While every other woodland lay is mute,

Save when the wren flits from her down-coved nest,

And from the root-sprig trills her ditty clear,—
The grass-hopper's oft-pausing chirp,-the buzz,
Angrily shrill, of moss-entangled bee,

That, soon as loosed, booms with full twang away,-
The sudden rushing of the minnow-shoal,

Scared from the shallows by my passing tread.
Dimpling the water glides, with here and there
A glossy fly, skimming in circlets gay

The treacherous surface, while the quick-eyed trout
Watches his time to spring; or, from above
Some feather'd dam, purveying 'midst the boughs,
Darts from her perch and to her plumeless brood
Bears off the prize :—sad emblem of man's lot!
He, giddy insect, from his native leaf,
(Where safe and happily he might have lurk'd,)
Elate upon ambition's gaudy wings,

Forgetful of his origin, and, worse,

Unthinking of his end, flies to the stream;
And if from hostile vigilance he 'scape,
Buoyant he flutters but a little while,
Mistakes the inverted image of the sky
For heaven itself, and, sinking, meets his fate.
Now let me trace the stream up to its source
Among the hills; its running by degrees
Diminishing, the murmur turns a tinkle ;
Closer and closer still the banks approach,
Tangled so thick with pleaching bramble-shoots,
With brier and hazel branch, and hawthorn spray,
That, fain to quit the dangle, glad I mount
Into the open air; grateful the breeze

That fans my throbbing temples! smiles the plain
Spread wide below; how sweet the placid view!
But oh! more sweet the thought, heart-soothing thought!
That thousands, and ten thousands of the sons

Of toil, partake this day the common joy
Of rest, of peace, of viewing hill and dale,
Of breathing in the silence of the woods,

A SUMMER SABBATH WALK.

And blessing Him who gave the Sabbath day.
Yes, my heart flutters with a freer throb,
To think that now the townsman wanders forth
Among the fields and meadows, to enjoy
The coolness of the day's decline; to see
His children sport around, and simply pull
The flower and weed promiscuous, as a boon,
Which proudly in his breast they smiling fix.

Again I turn me to the hill, and trace

391

The wizard stream, now scarce to be discerned;
Woodless its banks, but green with ferny leaves,
And thinly strew'd with heath-bells up and down.
Now, when the downward sun has left the glens,
Each mountain's rugged lineaments are traced
Upon the adverse slope, where stalks gigantic
The shepherd's shadow thrown across the chasm,
As on the topmost ridge he homeward hies.
How deep the hush! the torrent's channel, dry,,
Presents a stony steep, the echo's haunt:
But hark, a plaintive sound floating along!
'Tis from yon heath-roofed shielin; now it dies
Away, now rises full; it is the song
Which He,-who listens to the halleluiahs
Of choiring Seraphim-delights to hear:
It is the music of the heart, the voice
Of venerable age,—of guileless youth,
In kindly circle seated on the ground
Before their wicket door: Behold the man!
The grandsire and the saint; his silvery locks
Beam in the parting ray; before him lies,
Upon the smooth-cropt sward, the open book,
His comfort, stay, and ever-new delight!
While, heedless, at his side, the lisping boy
Fondles the lamb that nightly shares his couch.

AN AUTUMN SABBATH WALK.

WHEN homeward bands their several ways disperse,
I love to linger in the narrow field

Of rest; to wander round from tomb to tomb,
And think of some who silent sleep below.

Sad sighs the wind, that from those ancient elms
Shakes showers of leaves upon the wither'd grass:
The sere and yellow wreaths with eddying sweep
Fill the furrows 'tween the hillock'd graves.

up

But list that moan! 'tis the poor blind man's dog,
His guide for many a day, now come to mourn
The master and the friend, conjunction rare!
A man he was indeed of gentle soul,

Though bred to brave the deep: the lightning's flash
Had dimm'd, not closed, his mild but sightless eyes.
He was a welcome guest through all his range;
(It was not wide,) no dog would bay at him:
Children would run to meet him on his way,
And lead him to a sunny seat, and climb
His knee, and wonder at his oft-told tales.
Then would he teach the elfins how to plait
The rushy cap and crown, or sedgy ship;
And I have seen him lay his tremulous hand
Upon their heads, while silent moved his lips.
Peace to thy spirit! that now looks on me
Perhaps with greater pity than I felt
To see thee wand'ring darkling on thy way.
But let me quit this melancholy spot,

And roam where nature gives a parting smile.
As yet the blue-bells linger on the sod

That copes the sheep-fold ring; and in the woods
A second blow of many flowers appears―

Flowers faintly tinged, and breathing no perfume.
But fruits, not blossoms, form the woodland wreath
That circles Autumn's brow: the ruddy haws
Now clothe the half-leaved thorn; the bramble bends
Beneath its jetty load; the hazel hangs