The moment it has left the virgin's eye,
Or raindrop lingering on the pointed thorn.

THE VEILED MOON.

THE shepherd, looking eastward, softly said,
Bright is thy veil, O moon, as thou art bright!”
Forthwith, that little cloud, in ether spread,
And penetrated all with tender light,

She cast away, and showed her fulgent head
Uncovered; dazzling the beholder's sight
As if to vindicate her beauty's right,
Her beauty thoughtlessly disparagèd.
Meanwhile that veil, removed or thrown aside,
Went floating from her, darkening as it went;
And a huge mass, to bury or to hide,
Approached the glory of this firmament;
Who meekly yields, and is obscured :-content
With one calm triumph of a modest pride.

TO THE MOON.

WITH how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the sky;
How silently, and with how wan a face!

Where art thou? Thou whom I have seen on high
Running among the clouds a wood-nymph's race!
Unhappy nuns, whose common breath's a sigh
Which they would stifle, move at such a pace!
The northern wind, to call thee to the chase,
Must blow to-night his bugle-horn.

Had I

The power of Merlin, goddess! this should be:

And the keen stars, fast as the clouds were riven,
Should sally forth, an emulous company,

Sparkling and hurrying through the clear blue heaven;
But, Cynthia! should to thee the palm be given,
Queen both for beauty and for majesty.

TWILIGHT.

HAIL, Twilight, sovereign of one peaceful hour!
Not dull art thou as undiscerning night:

But studious only to remove from sight

Day's mutable distinctions. Ancient power!
Thus did the waters gleam, the mountains lower,
To the rude Briton, when, in wolfskin vest,
Here roving wild, he laid him down to rest
On the bare rock, or through a leafy bower
Looked ere his eyes were closed. By him was seen
The self-same vision which we now behold,

At thy meek bidding, shadowy power! brought forth;
These mighty barriers, and the gulf between ;
The floods-the stars-a spectacle as old
As the beginning of the heavens and earth!

THE DISTANT TAPER.

EVEN as the dragon's eye that feels the stress
Of a bedimming sleep, or as a lamp
Suddenly glaring through sepulchral damp,
So burns yon taper mid a black recess
Of mountains, silent, dreary, motionless:
The lake below reflects it not; the sky
Muffled in clouds affords no company
To mitigate and cheer its loneliness.
Yet around the body of that joyous thing,
Which sends so far its melancholy light,
Perhaps are seated in domestic ring
A gay society with faces bright,

Conversing, reading, laughing ;-or they sing,
While hearts and voices in the

song unite.

“MARK THE CONCENTRED HAZELS." MARK the concentred hazels that enclose

Yon old gray stone, protected from the ray

Of noontide suns: and even the beams that play
And glance, while wantonly the rough wind blows,
Are seldom free to touch the moss that grows
Upon that roof-amid embowering gloom
The very image framing of a tomb,

In which some ancient chieftain finds repose
Among the lonely mountains. Live, ye trees!
And thou, gray stone, the pensive likeness keep
Of a dark chamber where the mighty sleep:
Far more than fancy to the influence bends
When solitary Nature condescends
To mimic Time's forlorn humanities.

CAPTIVITY.

As the cold aspect of a sunless way

Strikes through the traveller's frame with deadlier chill, Oft as appears a grove, or obvious hill,

Glistening with unparticipated ray,

Or shining slope where he must never stray:
So joys remembered without wish or will,
Sharpen the keenest edge of present ill,-
On the crushed heart a heavier burthen lay.
Just Heaven, contract the compass of my mind
To fit proportion with my altered state!
Quench those felicities whose light I find
Reflected in my bosom all too late!

Oh, be my spirit like my thraldom, strait;
And, like mine eyes that stream with sorrow, blind

TO A BROOK.

BROOK! whose society the poet seeks
Intent his wasted spirits to renew ;

And whom the curious painter doth pursue

Through rocky passes, among flowery creeks,

And tracks thee dancing down thy water-breaks :
If wish were mine some type of thee to view,
Thee, and not thee thyself, I would not do
Like Grecian artists, give thee human cheeks,
Channels for tears; no naiad shouldst thou be,
Have neither limbs, feet, feathers, joints nor hairs;
It seems the eternal soul is clothed in thee
With purer robes than those of flesh and blood,
And hath bestowed on thee a better good;
Unwearied joy, and life without its cares.

DOGMATIC teachers of the snow-white fur!
Ye wrangling schoolmen of the scarlet hood!
Who with a keenness not to be withstood,
Press the point home,-or falter and demur,
Checked in your course by many a teasing burr;
These natural council seats your acrid blood
Might cool-and as the genius of the flood
Stoops willingly to animate and spur

Each lighter function slumbering in the brain,
Yon eddying balls of foam-these arrowy gleams,
That o'er the pavement of the surging streams
Welter and flash-a synod might detain
With subtle speculations, haply vain,

But surely less so than your far-fetched themes!

"PURE ELEMENT OF WATERS."

PURE element of waters! wheresoe'er

Thou dost forsake thy subterranean haunts,

Green herbs, bright flowers, and berry-bearing plants, Rise into life and in thy train appear:

And, through the sunny portion of the year,

Swift insects shine, thy hovering pursuivants;

And, if thy bounty fail, the forest pants;
And hart and hind and hunter with his spear,
Languish and droop together. Nor unfelt
In man's perturbed soul thy sway benign;
And, haply, far within the marble belt

Of central earth, where tortured spirits pine
For grace and goodness lost, thy murmurs melt
Their anguish,—and they blend sweet songs with thine.

MALHAM COVE.

WAS the aim frustrated by force or guile,
When giants scooped from out the rocky ground
Tier under tier-this semicirque profound?
(Giants-the same who built in Erin's isle
That causeway with incomparable toil!)
Oh, had this vast theatric structure wound
With finished sweep into a perfect round,
No mightier work had gained the plausive smile
Of all-beholding Phoebus! But, alas,

Vain earth!-false world!-Foundations must be laid
In heaven; for, mid the wreck of Is and was,
Things incomplete, and purposes betrayed,
Make sadder transits o'er Truth's mystic glass
Than noblest objects utterly decayed.

GORDALE.

AT early dawn, or rather when the air
Glimmers with fading light, and shadowy eve
Is busiest to confer and to bereave,

Then, pensive votary! let thy feet repair
To Gordale-chasm, terrific as the lair

Where the young lions couch; for so, by leave
Of the propitious hour, thou mayst perceive
local deity, with oozy hair