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 tak'st thro' the dim church-aisle thy way,

And its pillars from twilight flash forth to day, And its high pale tombs, with their trophies

old

Are bath'd in a flood as of molten gold.

And thou turnest not from the humblest grave,

Where a flower to the sighing winds may wave;

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 givenThe 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,
In peerless splendor repossess the sky,
And shine in renovated majesty.
In yon departing orb methinks I see
A counterpart of frail mortality.
Emblem of man! when life's declining sun
Proclaims this awful truth, "Thy race is run
His sun once set, its bright effulgence gone,
All, all is darkness, as it ne'er had shone!"
Yet not for ever is man's glory fled,

His name for ever "number'd with the dead,"

L

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

blight,

How doubly sweet to mark the moony ray

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.

And, still unchanged, back to the memory

bring

The smiles Favonian of life's earliest spring.

J. TAYLOR.

casement appear,

To far distant regions extend;

Illumine the dwellings of those that are dear,

And sleep on the grave of a friend.

Then still must I love thee mild Queen of

the Night!

Since feeling and fancy agree,

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 fled;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 exhilarating 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

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!