Even now she decks for me a distant scene, (For dark and broad the gulf of time between,) Gilding that cottage with her fondest ray,

(Sole bourn, sole wish, sole object of my way;
How fair its lawns and sheltering woods appear!
How sweet its streamlet murmurs in mine ear!)
Where we, my Friend, to happy days shall rise,
Till our small share of hardly-paining sighs
(For sighs will ever trouble human breath)
Creep hushed into the tranquil breast of death.

But now the clear bright Moon her zenith gains, And, rimy without speck, extend the plains: The deepest cleft the mountain's front displays Scarce hides a shadow from her searching rays; From the dark-blue faint silvery threads divide The hills, while gleams below the azure tide; The scene is wakened, yet its peace unbroke By the slow wreaths of quiet charcoal smoke, That o'er the ruins of the fallen wood Steal down the hill, and spread along the flood.

The song of mountain streams, unheard by day, Now hardly heard, beguiles my homeward way. All air is like the sleeping water, still, List'ning the aerial music of the hill, Broke only by the slow clock tolling deep, Or shout that wakes the ferryman from sleep, The echoed hoof approaching the far shore, Soon followed by his hollow parting oar; Sound of closed gate, across the water borne, Hurrying the feeding hare through rustling corn The tremulous sob of the complaining owl; And at long intervals the mill-dog's howl; The distant forge's swinging thump profound; Or yell, in the deep woods, of lonely hound.

As lovely visions by thy side

As now, fair river!-come to me. O glide, fair stream! for ever so,

Thy quiet soul on all bestowing, Till all our minds for ever flow

As thy deep waters now are flowing.

Vain thought!-Yet be as now thou art,
That in thy waters may be seen
The image of a poet's heart,

How bright, how solemn, how serene !

Such as did once the Poet bless,

Who, murmuring here a later ditty,

Could find no refuge from distress
But in the milder grief of pity.

Now let us, as we float along,

For him suspend the dashing oar; And pray that never child of song May know that Poet's sorrows more. How calm! how still! the only sound, The dripping of the oar suspended! -The evening darkness gathers round By virtue's holiest Powers attended.

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES ;

TAKEN DURING A PEDESTRIAN TOUR AMONG THE ALIS,

No sad vacuities his heart annoy ;-
Blows not a zephyr but it whispers joy;

For him lost flowers their idle sweets exhale ;
He tastes "the meanest note that swells the gale;"

For him sod-seats the cottage-door adorn,

And peeps the far-off spire, his evening bourn!
Dear is the forest frowning o'er his head,
And dear the greensward to his velvet tread :
Moves there a cloud o'er mid-day's flaming eye!
Upward he looks-" and calls it luxury ;”
Kind Nature's charities his steps attend;
In every babbling brook he finds a friend;
Whilst chast'ning thoughts of sweetest use, bestow'd
By Wisdom, moralize his pensive road.

Host of his welcome inn, the noontide bower,
To his spare meal he calls the passing poor;
He views the sun uplift his golden fire,
Or sink, with heart alive, like Memnon's lyre;
Blesses the moon that comes, with kindliest ray,
To light him shaken by his viewless way;
With bashful fear no cottage children steal
From him, a brother at the cottage meal;
His humble looks no shy restraint impart,
Around him plays at will the virgin heart.

While unsuspended wheels the village dance,
The maidens eye him with inquiring glance,
Much wondering what sad stroke of crazing care,
Or desperate love, could lead a wanderer there.

I sigh at hoary Chartreuse' doom;

Where now is fled that Power whose frown severe Tamed "sober Reason" till she crouched in fear? That breathed a death-like peace around these woods.

The cloister startles at the gleam of arms,
And blasphemy the shuddering fane alarms;

Nod the cloud-piercing pines their troubled heads;
Spires, rocks, and lawns, a browner night o'erspreads ;
Strong terror checks the female peasant's sighs,
And start the astonished shades at female eyes.
The thundering tube the aged angler hears,
And swells the groaning torrent with his tears.
From Bruno's forest screams the affrighted jay,
And slow the insulted eagle wheels away.
The cross, with hideous laughter, demons mock,
By angels planted on the aërial rock.
The "parting Genius" sighs with hollow breath
Along the mystic streams of Life and Death.10
Swelling the outery dull, that loud resounds
Portentous through her old woods' trackless bounds,
Vallombre, 'mid her falling fanes, deplores,
For ever broke, the Sabbath of her bowers.

More pleased, my foot the hidden margin roves
Of Como, bosomed deep in chestnut groves.
No meadows thrown between, the giddy steeps
Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow deeps.

To towns, whose shades of no rude sound complain,

To ringing team unknown and grating wain

To flat-roofed towns, that touch the water's bound,

Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound,