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THE SUNBEAM.

MRS. HEMANS.

THOU art no lingerer in monarch's hall,
A joy thou art and a wealth to all!
A bearer of hope unto land and sea-
Sun-beam! what gift hath the world like
thee?

Thou art walking the billows, and ocean smiles,

Thou hast touched with glory his thousand

isles;

Thou hast lit up the ships and the feathery foam,

And gladden'd the sailor, like words from home.

To the solemn depths of the forest shades, Thou art streaming on through their green arcades;

And the quivering leaves that have caught

thy glow,

Like fire-flies glance to the pools below.

I look'd on the mountains-a vapour lay
Folding their heights in its dark array :
Thou brakest forth-and the mist became
A crown and a mantle of living flame.

I look'd on the peasant's lowly cot-
Something of sadness had wrapt the spot;
But a gleam of thee on its lattice fell,
And it laugh'd into beauty at that bright
spell.

To the earth's wild places a guest thou art,
Flushing the waste like the rose's heart;
And thou scornest not from thy pomp to shed
A tender smile on the ruin's head.

Thou scatterest its gloom like the dreams of

rest,

Thou sleepest in love on its grassy breast.

Sunbeam of summer! oh! what is like thee,
Hope of the wilderness, joy of the sea?
One thing is like thee to mortals given-
The Faith touching all things with hues of
heaven!

REFLECTIONS

On seeing the Sun set for a period of three months-November, 1819.

PARRY.

BEHOLD yon glorious orb, whose feeble ray Mocks the proud glare of summer's livelier day!

His noon-tide beam, shot upward through

the sky,

Scarce gilds the vault of Heaven's blue
сапору-

A fainter yet, and yet a fainter light;
And lo! he leaves us now to one, long,

cheerless night!

And is his glorious course for ever o'er?
And has he set indeed, to rise no more?
To us no more shall spring's enlivening beam
Unlock the fountains of the fetter'd stream:
No more the wild bird carol through the sky,
And cheer yon mountains with rude melody?
Once more shall Spring her energy resume,
And chase the horrors of this wintry gloom;
Once more shall Summer's animating ray
Enliven nature with perpetual day:
Yon radiant orb, with self-inherent light,
Shall rise and dissipate the shades of night,.

Thou tak'st thro' the dim church-aisle thy In peerless splendor repossess the sky,

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Linger! sure thy glorious worth Was never felt until withdrawn ; And the lonely darkling earth,

Sighs for the coming of the dawn.

Ah! too soon the Christian dies,
The morn serene, meridian bright;
Evening calm, too rapid flies,
And palls us in too early night.

Yet that tranquil dying hour,

Grander is than stronger day; Sweetest is its latest power,

Surest is its faintest ray.

Sun! go down, to rise again;

Christian! depart, to enter bliss: Mine be its glad morrow's reign, May my last end be like his!

TWILIGHT.

MISS WILLIAMS.

MEEK Twilight! haste to shroud the solar ray,

And bring the hour my pensive spirit loves;
When o'er the hill is shed a paler day,
That gives to stillness and to night the groves.
Ah! let the gay, the roseate morning hail,
When, in the various blooms of light array'd,
She bids fresh beauty live along the vale,
And rapture tremble in the vocal shade:
Sweet is the lucid morning's op'ning flower,
Her choral melodies benignly rise;
Yet dearer to my soul the shadowy hour,
At which her blossoms close, her music dies:
For then mild Nature, while she droops her
head,

Wakes the soft tear 'tis luxury to shed.

TO THE MOON.

MOON.

H. K. WHITE. (Written in November.) SUBLIME, emerging from the misty verge Of the horizon dim, thee, Moon, I hail,

As sweeping o'er the leafless grove, the gale Seems to repeat the year's funereal dirge. Now Autumn sickens on the languid sight, And leaves bestrew the wanderer's lonely

way,

Now unto thee pale arbitress of night,
With double joy my homage do I pay,
When clouds disguise the glories of the day,
And stern November sheds her boisterous
blight,

I think of the future, still gazing the while,
As though thou'dst those secrets reveal;
But ne'er dost thou grant one encouraging
smile,

To answer the mournful appeal.

Thy beams, which so bright through my casement appear,

How doubly sweet to mark the moony ray
Shoot thro' the mist from the ethereal height,
And, still unchanged, back to the memory
bring
To far distant regions extend;
The smiles Favonian of life's earliest spring. Illumine the dwellings of those that are dear,

J. TAYLOR.

And sleep on the grave of a friend.

Then still must I love thee mild Queen of

the Night!

Since feeling and fancy agree,

WHAT is it that gives thee, mild Queen of To make thee a source of unfailing delight,

the Night,

That secret, intelligent grace?

Or why should I gaze with such pensive

delight

On thy fair, but insensible face?

What gentle enchantment possesses thy
beam,

Beyond the warm sunshine of day?
Thy bosom is cold as the glittering stream,
Where dances thy tremulous ray!

Canst thou the sad heart of its sorrows beguile?

Or grief's fond indulgence suspend? Yet, where is the mourner but welcomes thy smile,

And loves thee-almost as a friend!

The tear that looks bright, in the beam, as

it flows,

Unmoved dost thou ever behold;-
The sorrow that loves in thy light to repose,
To thee oft in vain hath been told!

Yet soothing thou art, and for ever I find,

Whilst watching thy gentle retreat,
A moonlight composure steal over my mind,
Poetical-pensive, and sweet!

I think of the years that for ever have filed;-
Of follies,-by others forgot;-

Of joys that are vanished-and hopes that
are dead;

And of friendships that were-and are not!

A friend and a solace to me!

TO THE HARVEST MOON.

H. K. WHITE.

MOON of Harvest, herald mild
Of plenty, rustic labour's child,
Hail! oh hail! I greet thy beam,
As soft it trembles o'er the stream,
And gilds the straw-thatched hamlet wide,
Where Innocence and Peace reside;
'Tis thou that glad'st with joy the rustic
throng,

Promptest the tripping dance, the exhila-
rating song.

Moon of Harvest, I do love
O'er the uplands now to rove,
While thy modest ray serene
Gilds the wild surrounding scene;
And to watch thee riding high
In the blue vault of the sky,
Where no thin vapour intercepts thy ray,
But in unclouded majesty thou walkest on

thy way.

Pleasing 'tis, oh! modest Moon!
Now the night is at her noon,
'Neath thy sway to musing lie,
While around the zephyrs sigh,

Fanning soft the sun-tann'd wheat,
Ripen'd by the summer's heat;
Picturing all the rustic's joy

When boundless plenty meets his eye,
And thinking soon,
Oh, modest moon!

How many a female eye will roam
Along the road,

To see the load,

The last dear load of harvest-home.

Storms and tempests, floods and rains,
Stern despoilers of the plains,
Hence away, the season flee,
Foes to light-heart jollity:
May no winds careering high,
Drive the clouds along the sky,

But may all nature smile with aspect boon, When in the heavens thou shew'st thy face, Oh, Harvest Moon!

'Neath yon lowly roof he lies,

The husbandman, with sleep-sealed eyes;
He dreams of crowded barns, and round
The yard, he hears the flail resound;
Oh! may no hurricane destroy

His visionary views of joy!

God of the winds! Oh, hear his humble

prayer,

MOONLIGHT SCENE IN ITALY.

BYRON.

THE stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains-Beautiful! I linger yet with Nature, for the night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man; and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness,

I learn'd the language of another world. I do remember me, that in my youth, When I was wandering-upon such a night I stood within the Coliseum's wall, 'Midst the chief relics of once mighty Rome; The trees which grew along the broken arches

Wav'd dark in the blue midnight, and the stars

Shone thro' the rents of ruin; from afar
The watch-dog bay'd beyond the Tiber; and
More near from out the Cæsars' palace came
The owl's long cry, and interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Begun and died upon the gentle wind.
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn
breach

Appear'd to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bowshot-where the Cæsars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst

And while the moon of harvest shines, thy A grove which springs thro' levell❜d battle

blustering whirlwind spare.

Sons of luxury, to you

Leave I Sleep's dull power to woo: Press ye still the downy bed,

ments,

And twines its roots with the imperial

hearths,

Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth;— But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands, A noble wreck in ruinous perfection!

While feverish dreams surround your head; While Cæsar's chambers, and the Augustan

I will seek the woodland glade,
Penetrate the thickest shade,
Wrapp'd in Contemplation's dreams,
Musing high on holy themes,
While on the gale
Shall softly sail

The nightingale's enchanting tune,
And oft my eyes,
Shall grateful rise

To thee, the modest Harvest Moon.

halls,

Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.

And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon,

upon

All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which soften'd down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up,
As 'twere, anew, the gaps of centuries;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not.

STARS.

THE STARS.

CROLY.

YE stars! bright legions that, before all time,

Camped on yon plain of sapphire, what shall tell

Your burning myriads, but the eye of Him Who bade thro' heaven your golden

chariots wheel?

Yet who earthborn can see your hosts, nor feel

Immortal impulses-Eternity?

What wonder if the o'erwrought soul should reel

With its own weight of thought, and the

mild eye

Your incense to the THRONE. The Hea

vens shall burn!

For all your pomps are dust, and shall to dust return.

Yet look ye living intellects.-The trine Of waning planets, speaks it not decay? Does Schedir's staff of diamond wave no sign?

Monarch of midnight, Sirius, shoots thy ray

Undimm'd, when thrones sublunar pass away?

Dreams!-yet if e'er was graved in vigil

wan

Your spell or gem or imaged alchemy, The sign when empires' hour-glass downwards ran,

See fate within your tracks of sleepless glory Twas on that arch, graved on that brazen

lie ?

For ye behold the MIGHTIEST. From that

steep

What ages have ye worshipp'd round your

King!

talisman.

THE EVENING STAR.

ANON.

Ye heard his trumpet sounded o'er the STAR of the Evening! How I love to mark sleep Of Earth ;-ye heard the morning-angels Upon the ocean-wave! How brightly dark,

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Your vineyard shall be shaken! From your Thou lovely star! methinks thy herald-ray

urn

Speaketh of rest beyond our hour of time;

Censers of Heaven! no more shall glory And seemeth to invite the soul away
To seek for refuge in a happier clime.-

rise,

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