DIANA, HECATE OR THE MOON.

How like a queen comes forth the lonely moon,
From the slow-opening curtains of the clouds,
Walking in beauty to her midnight throne!
The stars are veiled in light; the ocean floods
And the ten thousand streams; the boundless

woods;

The trackless wilderness; the mountain's brow, Where winter o'er eternal snow-drifts broods; All height, depth, wildness, grandeur, gloom, below,

Touched by thy smile, lone moon, in one wide

splendor glow.

THE MOON.

CROLY.

THE sleeping kine,

Couched in thy brightness, dream of fields divine.

Innumerable mountains rise, and rise,

Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes;

And yet thy benediction passeth not
One obscure hiding place, one little spot

Where pleasure may be sent; the nested wren
Has thy fair face within its tranquil ken; &c. &c.

KEATS.

ACTEON.

'MIDST others of less note came one frail form,

A phantom among men; companionless
As the last cloud of an expiring storm,
Whose thunder is its knell; he, as I guess,
Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness,
Actæon-like; and now he fled astray

With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness; And his own Thoughts, along that rugged way, Pursued like raging hounds their father and their

prey.

SHELLEY.

CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS.

A HUNTER once in a grove reclined,
To shun the noon's bright eye,
And oft he wooed the wandering wind
To cool his brow with its sigh.

While mute lay even the wild bee's hum,
Nor breath could stir the aspen's hair,

His song was still, "Sweet Air, O come!"

While Echo answered, “Come, sweet Air!”

MOORE.

QUEEN of the wide air, thou most lovely queen Of all the brightness that mine eyes have seen! As thou exceedest all things in thy shine,

So

KEATS.

ENDYMION.

He stood,

Fine as those shapely spirits, heaven-descended,

Hermes or young Apollo, or whom she,

The moon-lit Dian, on the Latmian hill,

When all the woods and all the winds were still, Kissed with the kiss of immortality.

BARRY CORNWALL.

A SPOT FOR LOVERS.

I PRAY thee stay! Where hast thou been?
Or whither goest thou? Here be woods as green
As any; air likewise as fresh and sweet
As where smooth Zephyrus plays on the fleet
Face of the curléd streams, with flowers as many
As the young spring gives, and as choice as any;
Choose where thou wilt, whilst I sit by and sing,
Or gather rushes to make many a ring
For thy long fingers; tell thee tales of love, -
How the pale Phœbe, hunting in a grove,
First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes
She took eternal fire that never dies;
How she conveyed him softly, in a sleep,
His temples bound with poppy, to the steep

Head of old Latmos, where she stoops each night, Gilding the mountain with her brother's light,

To kiss her sweetest.

FLETCHER'S FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS.

NIGHT THOUGHTS.

THESE thoughts, O Night, are thine;

From thee they came like lovers' secret sighs, When others slept. So Cynthia, poets feign, In shadows veiled, soft, sliding from her sphere, Her shepherd cheered, of her enamoured less Than I of thee.

ENDYMION.

YOUNG.

SUGGESTED BY A PAINTING BY LUCA GIORDANO.

GIORDANO, verily thy pencil's skill

Hath here portrayed, with Nature's happiest grace,
The fair Endymion couched on Latmos hill;
And Dian gazing on the shepherd's face
In rapture, yet suspending her embrace,

As not unconscious with what power the thrill
Of her most timid touch his sleep would chase,