'Tis past! the sultry tyrant of the south
Has spent his short-lived rage: more grateful hours
Move silent on; the skies no more repel
The dazzled sight, but, with mild maiden beams
Of temper'd light, invite the cherish'd eye
To wander o'er their sphere, where hung aloft,
Dian's bright crescent,
66 like a silver bow
New strung in heaven," lifts high its beamy horns,
Impatient for the night, and seems to push
Her brother down the sky. Fair Venus shines,
Even in the eye of day; with sweetest beam
Propitious shines, and shakes a trembling flood
Of soften'd radiance from her dewy loins.
The shadows spread apace; while meeken'd Eve,
Her cheek yet warm with blushes, slow retires
Through the Hesperian gardens of the west,
And shuts the gates of day. 'Tis now the hour
When Contemplation, from her sunless haunts,
The cool damp grotto, or the lonely depth
Of unpierced woods, where wrapt in solid shade
She mused away the gaudy hours of noon,
And, fed on thoughts unripen'd by the sun,
Moves forward, and with radiant finger points
To yon
blue concave swell'd by breath divine,
Where, one by one, the living eyes of heaven
Awake, quick kindling o'er the face of ether
One boundless blaze; ten thousand trembling fires,
And dancing lustres, where th' unsteady eye,
Restless and dazzled, wanders unconfined
O'er all this field of glories: spacious field,
And worthy of the master: he whose hand,
With hieroglyphics older than the Nile,
Inscribed the mystic tablet; hung on high
To public gaze; and said, Adore, O man,
The finger of thy God! From what pure wells
Of milky light, what soft o'erflowing urn,
Are all these lamps so fill'd? these friendly lamps
For ever streaming o'er the azure deep
To point our path, and light us to our home.
How soft they slide along their lucid spheres!
And, silent as the foot of time, fulfil
Their destined course! Nature's self is hush'd,
And, but a scatter'd leaf, which rustles through
The thick-wove foliage, not a sound is heard
To break the midnight air; though the raised ear,
Intensely listening, drinks in every breath.
How deep the silence, yet how loud the praise!
But are they silent all? or is there not
A tongue in every star that talks with man,
And woos him to be wise? nor woos in vain :
This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,
And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.
At this still hour the self-collected soul
Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there
Of high descent, and more than mortal rank;
An embryo God; a spark of fire divine,
Which must burn on for ages, when the sun
(Fair transitory creature of a day)
Has closed his golden eye, and, wrapt in shades,
Forgets his wonted journey through the east.
Ye citadels of light, and seats of Gods—
Perhaps my future home, from whence the soul,
Revolving periods past, may oft look back,
With recollected tenderness, on all
The various busy scenes she left below,
Its deep-laid projects and its strange events,
As on some fond and doating tale that soothed
Her infant hours-oh, be it lawful now
To tread the hallow'd circle of your courts,
And with mute wonder and delighted awe
Approach your burning confines! Seized in thought,
On fancy's wild and roving wing I sail
From the green borders of the peopled earth,
And the pale moon, her duteous fair attendant;
From solitary Mars; from the vast orb
Of Jupiter, whose huge gigantic bulk
Dances in ether like the lightest leaf;
To the dim verge, the suburbs of the system,
Where cheerless Saturn, midst his watery moons,
Girt with a lucid zone, in gloomy pomp,
Sits like an exiled monarch: fearless thence
I launch into the trackless deeps of space,
Where, burning round, ten thousand suns appear,
Of elder beams; which ask no leave to shine
Of our terrestrial star, nor borrow light
From the proud regent of our scanty day;
Sons of the morning, first-born of creation,
And only less than Him who marks their track,
And guides their fiery wheels. Here must I stop,
Or is there aught beyond? What hand unseen
Impels me onward through the glowing orbs
Of habitable nature, far remote,
To the dread confines of eternal night,
To solitudes of vast unpeopled space,
The deserts of creation wide and wild,
Where embryo systems and unkindled suns
Sleep in the womb of chaos? fancy droops,
And thought astonish'd stops her bold career.
But, O thou mighty Mind! whose powerful word
Said, Thus let all things be, and thus they were,
Where shall I seek thy presence? how unblamed
Invoke thy dread perfection ?-
Have the broad eyelids of the morn beheld thee?
Or does the beamy shoulder of Orion
Support thy throne? Oh, look with pity down
On erring, guilty man! not in thy names
Of terror clad; not with those thunders arm'd
That conscious Sinai felt, when fear appall'd
The scatter'd tribes! Thou hast a gentler voice,
That whispers comfort to the swelling heart,
Abash'd, yet longing to behold her Maker.
But now my soul, unused to stretch her
In flight so daring, drops her weary wing,
And seeks again the known accustom'd spot,
Drest up with sun, and shade, and lawns, and streams;
A mansion fair and spacious for its guest,
And full, replete with wonders. Let me here,
Content and grateful, wait the appointed time,
And ripen for the skies. The hour will come
When all these splendours, bursting on my sight,
Shall stand unveil'd, and to my ravish'd sense
Unlock the glories of the world unknown.
There is a fine simplicity and a great moral truth in these old quaint ines of Surrey:
When Summer took in hand the winter to assail,
With force of might, and virtue great, his stormy blasts to quail :
And when he clothed fair the earth about with green,
And every tree new garmented, that pleasure was to seen:
Mine heart gan new revive, and changed blood did stir,
Me to withdraw my winter woes, that kept within the durre.
Abroad,' quoth my desire, assay to set thy foot;
Where thou shalt find the savour sweet; for sprung is every root.
And to thy health if thou wert sick, in any case,
Nothing more good than in the spring the air to feel a space.
There shalt thou hear and see all kinds of birds y-wrought,
Well time their voice with warble small, as nature hath them taught.'
Thus pricked me my lust the sluggish house to leave,
And for my health I thought it best such counsel to receive.
In Thomson's Castle of Indolence' there are descriptive passages which in our view are finer and more luxuriant than any portion of his Seasons.'
It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground:
And there a season atween June and May,
Half prankt with spring, with summer half imbrown'd,
A listless climate made, where, sooth to say,
No living wight could work, ne cared ev'n for play.
Was nought around but images of rest:
Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between ;
And flowery beds that slumberous influence kest,
From poppies breathed; and beds of pleasant green,
Where never yet was creeping creature seen.
Meantime unnumber'd glittering streamlets play'd,
And hurled every where their waters sheen;
That as they bicker'd through the sunny glade,
Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.
Join'd to the prattle of the purling rills,
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,
And flocks loud-bleating from the distant hills,
And vacant shepherds piping in the dale:
And now and then sweet Philomel would wail,
Or stock-doves plain amid the forest deep,
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale;
And still a coil the grasshopper did keep;
Yet all these sounds y-blent inclined all to sleep.
What music is there in this brief passage of Shelley:-
It was a bright and cheerful afternoon,
Towards the end of the sunny month of June,
When the north wind congregates in crowds
The floating mountains of the silver clouds
From the horizon—and the stainless sky
Opens beyond them like eternity.
All things rejoiced beneath the sun, the weeds,
The river, and the corn-fields, and the reeds;
The willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze,
And the firm foliage of the larger trees.
The joy of insects is one of the great characteristics of Summer. Anacreon sung of the grasshopper, and Moore has thus translated his Ode:
Oh thou, of all creation blest,
Sweet insect! that delight'st to rest
Upon the wild wood's leafy tops,
To drink the dew that morning drops,
And chirp thy song with such a glee,
That happiest kings may envy thee!
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