The first pale yellow tint of light
Is trembling Fear, that shrinks from sight;
But deepening to the saffron bright,
Its golden ray betokens Joy:
While Hope assumes the violet hue,
And holy Love, sublime and true,
Is mark'd by that celestial blue
That knows not earth or earth's alloy.
And meek Humility is seen
Emblem'd upon the modest green;
While Reason's calm imperial mien
Upon the purple tinge is shed:
And spurning even her mild control
With light that seems to crown the whole,
The Zeal that fires the ardent soul
Burns brightly in the glowing red.
The splendid tints are fading-gone!
The dazzled eye can trace not one:
It sees the sunny beams alone
That in their hueless lustre shine:
And thus, when this vain scene is o'er,
And earthly thoughts and passions pour
Their drops upon its light no more,
Religion will be all divine!
How brilliant on the Ethiop brow of Night
Burns yon fix'd star, whose intermitting rays,
Like woman's changeful eye, now shun our gaze,
And now break forth in all the life of light!
Far fount of beams! thou scarce art to the sight,
In size, a spangle on the Tyrian stole
Of Majesty, 'mid hosts more mildly bright,
Although of worlds the centre and the soul!
Sure, 't was a thing for angels to have seen,
When God did hang those lustres through the sky;
And Darkness, turning pallid, sought to screen
With dusky wing her dazed and haggard eye;—
But 't was in vain-for, pierced with light, she died;
And now her timid ghost dares only brood
O'er planets in their midnight solitude,
Doom'd all the day in ocean's caves to hide.
Thou burning axle of a mighty wheel!
Dost thou afflict the beings of thy ray
With feelings such as we on earth must feel-
Pride, passion, envy, hatred, agony?
Doth any weep o'er blighted hope? or curse
That hour thy light first usher'd them to life?
Or malice, keener than the assassin's knife,
Stab in the dark? or hollow friendship, worse,
Skill'd round the heart with viper coil to wind,
Forsake, and leave his sleepless sting behind!
No! If I deem'd it, I should cease to look
Beyond the scene where thousands know such ills;
Nor longer read that brightly-letter'd book
Which heaven unfolds, whose page of beauty fills
The breast with hope of an immortal lot,
When tears are dried, and injuries forgot.
Oh, then the soul, no longer earthward weigh'd,
Shall soar tow'rds heaven on exulting wing.
Among the joys past Fancy's picturing,
It may be one to scan, through space display'd,
Those wondrous works our blindness now debars-
The awful secrets written in the stars.
APPROACH OF EVENING.
NIGHT'S wing is on the east-the clouds repose Like weary armies of the firmament,
Encamp'd beneath their vanes of pearl and rose, Till the wind's sudden trumpet through them sent, Shakes their pavilions, and their pomps are blent
In rich confusion. Now the air is fill'd With thousand odours, sigh'd by blossoms bent In closing beauty, where the dew distill'd From Evening's airy urns their purple lips has chill'd.
Twilight has come in saffron mists embower'd, For the broad sun on the Atlantic surge, Now sparkling in the fiery flashes shower'd From his swift wheels-the forest vapours urge Their solemn wings above-white stars emerge From the dark east, like spires of mountain snows Touch'd by the light upon th' horizon's verge; Just rising from her sleep, the young Moon shows, Supine upon the clouds, her cheeks suffused with rose. This is the loveliest hour of all that Day Calls upwards through its kingdom of the air.The sights and sounds of earth have died away; Above, the clouds are roll'd against the glare Of the red west-high volumed waves, that war Against a diamond promontory's side, Crested with one sweet, solitary star,
That like a watch-fire trembles o'er the tide, Bright'ning with every shade that on its surge doth ride.
THE WINTER ROSE.
HAIL, and farewell, thou lovely guest,
I may not woo thy stay,
The hues that paint thy glowing vest
Are fading fast away,
Like the retiring tints that die
At evening on the western sky,
And melt in misty gray.
It was but now thy radiant smile
"Broke through the season's gloom,
As, bending, I inhaled a while
Thy breathing of perfume;
And traced on every silken leaf
A tale of summer, sweet and brief,
And sudden as thy doom.
The morning sun thy petals hail'd
New from their mossy cell,
At eve his beam, in sorrow veil'd,
Bade thee a last farewell;❤
To-morrow's ray shall mark the spot
Where, loosen'd from their fairy knot,
Thy withering beauties fell."
Alas! on thy forsaken stem
My heart shall long recline,
And mourn the transitory gem,
And make the story mine;
So on my joyless winter hour
Has oped some fair and fragrant flower,
With smile as soft as thine.
Like thee, the vision came and went,
Like thee, it bloom'd and fell,
In momentary pity sent
Of fairer climes to tell,
So frail its form, so short its stay,
That naught the lingering heart could say But, Hail, and Fare thee well!
I GAZE upon yon orbs of light-
The countless stars that gem the sky;
Each in its sphere serenely bright,
Wheeling its course-how silently!
While in the mantle of the night
Earth, and its cares and troubles lie.
Temple of light and loveliness,
And throne of grandeur, can it be
That souls, whose kindred loftiness
Nature hath framed to rise to thee,
Should pine within this narrow space,
This prison of mortality?
What madness from the path of right
For ever leads our steps astray,
That, reckless of thy pure delight,
We turn from this divine array,
To chase a shade that mocks the sight-
A good that vanisheth away.
Awake, ye mortals! raise your eyes
To these eternal starry spheres;
Look on these glories of the skies,
And see how poor this world appears,
With all its pomps and vanities-
With all its hopes and all its fears.
Who can look forth upon this blaze
Of heavenly lamps, so brightly shining Through the unbounded void of spaceA hand unseen their course assigningAll moving with unequal pace,
Yet in harmonious concord joining:
Who sees the silver chariot move
Of the bright moon; and, gliding slow,
The star whose influence from above
Sheds knowledge on the world below;
And the resplendent Queen of Love
All bright and beautifully glow:
Or, where the angry God of War
Rolls fiercely on his bloody way,
And near the mild majestic star
That o'er the gods of old held sway;
That beams his radiance from afar,
And calms the heavens beneath his ray:
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