110

SUNSET WITH CLOUDS.

HE earth grows dark about me,
But heaven shines clear above,
As daylight slowly melts away
With the crimson light I love;
And clouds, like floating shadows
Of every form and hue,
Hover around his dying couch,

And blush a bright adieu.

Like fiery forms of angels,

They throng around the sun

Courtiers that on their monarch wait,

Until his course is run;

From him they take their glory;
His honor they uphold;

And trail their flowing garments forth,
Of purple, green and gold.

O bliss to gaze upon them,
From this commanding hill,
And drink the spirit of the hour,
While all around is still;
While distant skies are opening
And stretching far away,

A shadowy landscape dipp'd in gold,
Where happier spirits stray.

I feel myself immortal,

As in your robe of light

'The glorious hills and vales of heaven
Are dawning on the sight;
I seem to hear the murmur

Of some celestial stream,

And catch the glimmer of its course
Beneath the sacred beam.

And such, methinks, with rapture,
Is my eternal home-

More lovely than this passing glimpse
To which my footsteps roam;
There's something yet more glorious
Succeeds this life of pain;

And, strengthened with a mightier hope,
I face the world again.

-Temple Bar

TO THE MOCKING BIRD.

R. H. WILDE.

Wing'd mimic of the woods! thou motley fool,
Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe?
Thine ever ready notes of ridicule

Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe:
Wit, sophist, songster, YORICK of thy tribe,
Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school;
To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe,
Arch-mocker and mad Abbot of Misrule!

For such thou art by day-but all night long
Thou pour'st a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain,
As if thou didst in this thy moonlight song
Like to the melancholy JACQUES complain,
Musing on falsehood, folly, vice, and wrong,
And sighing for thy motley coat again.