Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way, As the far bell of vesper makes him start,

Seeming to weep the dying day's decay: Is this a fancy which our reason scorns? Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns.

LORD BYRON.

MOONLIGHT ON THE PRAIRIE.

FROM "EVANGELINE."

BEAUTIFUL was the night. Behind the black wall of the forest,

Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. On the river

Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous gleam of the moonlight,

Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and devious spirit

Sweet hour of twilight! in the solitude

Of the pine forest, and the silent shore Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood, Rooted where once the Adrian wave flowed o'er To where the last Cæsarean fortress stood,

Evergreen forest; which Boccaccio's lore And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me, How have I loved the twilight hour and thee!

The shrill cicalas, people of the pine,

Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine, And vesper bells that rose the boughs along; The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line,

His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng

Which learned from this example not to fly
From a true lover,-shadowed my mind's eye.

O Hesperus! thou bringest all good things,—
Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer,
To the young bird the parent's brooding wings,
The welcome stall to the o'erlabored steer;
Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings,
Whate'er our household gods protect of dear,
Are gathered round us by thy look of rest;
Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's
breast.

Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart

Of those who sail the seas, on the first day When they from their sweet friends are torn

apart;