And glistening antlers are descried,
And gilded flocks appear.

Thine is the tranquil hour, purpureal Eve!
But long as godlike wish, or hope divine,
Informs my spirit, ne'er can I believe
That this magnificence is wholly thine!

From worlds not quickened by the sun

A portion of the gift is won;

An intermingling of Heaven's pomp is spread On ground which British shepherds tread!

III.

And if there be whom broken ties

Afflict, or injuries assail,

Yon hazy ridges to their eyes

Present a glorious scale,

Climbing, suffused with sunny air,

To stop

no record hath told where !

And tempting Fancy to ascend,

And with immortal Spirits blend!

-Wings at my shoulders seem to play;
But, rooted here, I stand and gaze

On those bright steps that heavenward raise
Their practicable way.

Come forth, ye drooping old men, look abroad,
And see to what fair countries ye are bound!
And if some traveller, weary of his road,
Hath slept since noontide on the grassy ground,
Ye Genii! to his covert speed;

And wake him with such gentle heed

As may attune his soul to meet the dower
Bestowed on this transcendent hour!

IV.

Such hues from their celestial Urn

Were wont to stream before mine eye,
Where'er it wandered in the morn
Of blissful infancy.

This glimpse of glory, why renewed?
Nay, rather speak with gratitude;
For, if a vestige of those gleams
Survived, 't was only in my dreams.

Dread Power! whom peace and calmness serve
No less than Nature's threatening voice,
If aught unworthy be my choice,
From THEE if I would swerve,

O, let thy grace remind me of the light
Full early lost, and fruitlessly deplored;
Which, at this moment, on my waking sight
Appears to shine, by miracle restored;
My soul, though yet confined to earth,
Rejoices in a second birth!

-'Tis past, the visionary splendor fades ;
And night approaches with her shades.

1818.

Note. The multiplication of mountain ridges, described at the commencement of the third Stanza of this Ode as a kind of Jacob's Ladder leading to Heaven, is produced either by watery vapors or sunny haze;-in the present instance, by the latter cause. Allusions to the Ode entitled "Intimations of Immortality" pervade the last Stanza of the foregoing Poem.

A less imperious sympathy is due,

Such as my verse now yields, while moonbeams play
On the mute sea in this unruffled bay;

Such as will promptly flow from every breast,
Where good men, disappointed in the quest
Of wealth and power and honors, long for rest;
Or, having known the splendors of success,
Sigh for the obscurities of happiness.

XI.

THE Crescent-moon, the Star of Love,
Glories of evening, as ye there are seen
With but a span of sky between,

Speak one of you, my doubts remove,

Which is the attendant Page and which the Queen?

XII.

TO THE MOON.

(Composed by the Sea-side, -on the Coast of Cumberland.)

WANDERER! that stoop'st so low, and com'st so

near

To human life's unsettled atmosphere;

Who lov'st with Night and Silence to partake,