I bring them from the tomb: O'er the sad couch of late repentant love I come with all my train: Who calls me lonely?-hosts around me tread, Looks from departed eyes, These are my lightnings!—filled with anguish vain I, that with soft control, Shut the dim violet, hush the woodland song, I, that shower dewy light Through slumbering leaves, bring storms!—the tempest birth Of memory, thought, remorse:-be holy, earth!- I am the solemn Night! MRS. HEMANS. A WINTER NIGHT. WINTER night; the stormy wind is hight, And mournfully surveys the starless sky : To tend his fleecy charge in drifted snow, Happy the fireside student: happier still The social circle round the blazing hearth. If, while these estimate aright the worth Of every blessing which their cup may fill, Their grateful hearts with sympathy can thrill For every form of wretchedness on earth. BERNARD BARTON. NIGHT. RAIL, Night! pavilioned 'neath the rayless cope; Who wakeful gilds, with reveries bright, thy gloom, And meditates on Him who sways its course. GRAHAME. NIGHT. (IS night—and in darkness the visions of youth Flit solemn and slow in the eye of the mind; The hope they excited hath perished, and truth Laments o'er the wrecks they are leaving behind. 'Tis midnight—and high o'er the regions of riot Are spread, deep in silence, the wings of repose; And man, soothed from revel, and lulled into quiet, Forgets in his slumbers the weight of his woes. How gloomy and dim is the scowl of the heaven, To omen a something like hope to the breast. Where, where are the spirits in whom was my trust, While I, in a populous solitude, languish 'Mid foes that beset me, and friends that are cold: Ah! the pilgrim of earth oft has felt in his anguish, That the heart may be widowed before it is old! Affection can soothe but its votaries an hour, Let the storms of adversity lour; 'tis in vain, Though friends should forsake me, and foes should combine; Such may kindle the breasts of the weak to complain, For, far o'er the regions of doubt, or of dreaming, And bright through the tempest the rainbow is streaming: D. M. MOIR. NIGHT. HE crowd are gone, the revellers at rest; The courteous host, and all-approving guest, Again to that accustomed couch must creep Where joy subsides, and sorrow sighs to sleep; And man, o'erlaboured with his being's strife, Shrinks to that sweet forgetfulness of life: There lie love's feverish hope, and cunning's guile, Hate's working brain, and lulled ambition's wile; O'er each vain eye oblivion's pinions wave, And quenched existence crouches in a grave. What better name may slumber's bed become? Night's sepulchre, the universal home, Where weakness, strength, vice, virtue, sunk supine, Glad for a while to heave unconscious breath, BYRON. NIGHT. OUL-SOOTHING season! period of repose, Our souls in worldly intercourse have found, They gather round us, from their silent wings Prosperite te gandy daylight clings, But that at sorrow's chosen, meek compeer: Ana in zhy healing influence, dost renew And I thou didst not this, there is in thee Waring, however, these ty viller fights, And passing or the soothing calm delights Beauty's wan check, curtain her eye of blue, One topic more, still Night! will yet intrude Of silence yet more awful; although we Are loathe the approach of death's dark night to see! Thy Son beloved, man's sacrifice to be, Grant that in life's last hour my soul may crave, Nor crave in vain, his love to light me through the grave. BARTON |