Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew;

And with an unthrift love did run from Venice,

Did young Lorenzo swear he loved her well,
Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,

Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew,

Slander her love, and he forgave it her.

Jes. I would out-night you, did nobody come :

But, hark, I hear the footing of a man.

He avails himself of the night with terrible effect in his tragedies. It is when " Night thickens and the crow makes wing to the rooky wood" that the murder of Banquo is accomplished. His ghost rises at the night banquet. And what can surpass in poetic effect the night scene in which Lady Macbeth wanders asleep from her bed, with a light in her hand, to examine the blood spots on the floor. The powerfully described storm on the heath, which beats upon the raving Lear, is at night. The finest scenes of Romeo and Juliet are laid in the night; such is the unequalled fancy picture of Queen Mab. Romeo falls in

love at night with Juliet,

"Whose beauty hangs upon the cheek of night

Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear."

66

It is at night that he sees her from Capulet's garden,

when the blessed moon tips with silver all the fruit tree tops." He resorts to the monk's cell when

"The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Checkering the Eastern clouds, with streaks of light,
And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels."

He parts from his night interview with her when

"Envious streaks

Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops."

And he seeks her tomb and dies by her side at night.

Hamlet opens with a graphic night scene, and an apparition; and at night the Prince sees the ghost of his murdered father, a "dead corse in complete steel revisiting the glimpses of the moon, making night hideous." Othello at night bends over the sleeping Desdemona, and consummates the harrowing denouement of the Moor of Venice amidst the shrieks of his bride,

"Kill me to-morrow, let me live to-night!'

These are but specimens of the use of the scenery and associations of the night in poetry. In the poetry of all languages and all ages is its imagery found, and perhaps

no other aspect of nature has afforded more ideal beauties or terrors to the muse. Who can read Dante especially, without being smitten at the poetic grandeur of the night? The Divina Commedia cannot be appreciated by a reader who does not appreciate its nocturnal images and associations. Most of his allusions to night are, like all his pictures, brief, sudden, and severe, often quite technical or astrologic, but like the sharp quick lightning, they cast a far reaching and terrible illumination upon his sublime "vision." Milton, on the other hand, seemed to delight most in the beauty of the night. Shakspeare uses it as he does all things else, in every variety of its imagery.

These illustrations are from the great universal bards, and are therefore specimens of universal poetry. There are later poets, from Young to Longfellow, who, though inferior in general excellence, have if possible given better pictures of the night. Byron's stanzas on the Night-storm of the Alps are perhaps unequalled.

Such, then, are the relations of Night to scenery, the religious sentiment, and poetry.

A NIGHT REVERY.

BY REV. E. OTHEMAN, A. M.

"TIS NIGHT.

The noisy strife of day is quelled,

And a calm, holy hush broods o'er the land,
And o'er the sea. There is no cloud in heaven,
No mist throughout the atmosphere.

The healthful thunder of the day just closed
Has chased all noxious vapors from the air.
The deep blue vault, like a gemmed canopy,
O'erhangs the sleeping earth; its azure folds,
In deepening lines of solemn beauty,

Gathered round from the bright zenith, reach far
Down to the dim horizon, where the sky

And earth seem blended. And the land, though full
Of living creatures, and the city near,

Whose feet and voices, bustle and business,
In the glare of day, make such discordant
Music, lie now in deep repose, just as
The babe sleeps quiet in its mother's arms.
up their hands to heaven

The

very trees lift

In silent awe. Even restless ocean,
Its surface ruffled with the lightest gale,

With bosom heaving as it were the lungs
Of nature, now is smooth as tiniest lake.

Here I stand, on the dim shore of our own
Lovely village, and my heart, musing, throbs
With grand emotions. Could the pencil sketch
This august beauty with the tints of art?
Could the rapt Muse, with fancy's loftiest flight,
Portray the solemn grandeur of this scene?
Would that my soul were touched with Milton's fire!
Still, words would then quite dwarf the vast ideas
That grow and grow within me as I drink
Draughts from this fountain of sublimity,
Such as might quench an angel's thirst. How this
Mighty dome, high, wide, magnificent,
Spreads o'er me like the wing of the Eternal!
O how resplendent is it with those stars
Whose living light streams down into the soul.
Suns are they, fountains of glory to the spheres
Which move unseen around them. Spirits blest,
Perhaps, encircle them in radiant orbs.

O could we rise to those bright worlds, and
Step from star to star, up, up the expanse
The fathomless abyss of space and see
Still worlds on worlds, systems on systems wheel
Above, around us in their endless maze,
Yet order perfect; how would our souls, rapt

With the stupendous gaze, for ever cry,