NIGHT.

Swiftly walk over the Western wave,
Spirit of Night!

Out of the misty Eastern cave,

Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear;
Swift be thy flight!

Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Star inwrought!

Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day!

Kiss him until he be wearied out;

Then wander o'er city and sea and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand!
Come, long sought!

When I arose and saw the dawn,

I sighed for thee;

When light rode high, and dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree;
And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,
I sighed for thee.

Thy brother Death came, and cried,
"Wouldst thou me?"

Thy sweet child, Sleep the filmy-eyed,
Murmur'd like a noon-tide bee-

"Shall I nestle by thy side?

Wouldst thou me?" And I replied

No! not thee.

Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon!

Sleep will come when thou art fled;
Of neither would I ask the boon

I ask of thee, beloved Night!

Swift be thine approaching flight!
Come soon, soon!

-Percy Bysshe Shelley.

AT THE CHURCH GATE.

Although I enter not,
Yet round about the spot
Ofttimes I hover;

And near the sacred gate,
With longing eyes I wait,
Expectant of her.

The minster bell tolls out
Above the city's rout

And noise and humming.

They've hushed the minster bell!

The organ 'gins to swell;

She's coming, she's coming!

My lady comes at last,

Timid and stepping fast,

And hastening hither,

With modest eyes downcast;
She comes, she's here, she's past!
May heaven go with her!

Kneel undisturbed, fair saint!
Pour out your praise or plaint
Meekly and duly;

I will not enter there,

To sully your pure prayer
With thoughts unruly.

But suffer me to pace
Round the forbidden place,

Lingering a minute,

Like outcast spirits, who wait,

And see, through heaven's gate,

Angels within it.

-William Makepeace Thackeray.

DAFFODILS.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vale and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way.
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of the bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprighty dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee—
A Poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company!

I gazed-and gazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought;

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

-William Wordsworth.

NIGHT AND DEATH.

Mysterious Night, when our first parent knew
Thee, from divine report, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely Frame,

This glorious canopy of Light and Blue?

Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,

Bathed in the ray of the great setting Flame,
Hesperus with the Host of Heaven, came.

And lo! Creation widened on Man's view.

Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find
Whilst flower, and leaf, and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless Orbs thou mad'st us blind!
Why do we then shun Death with anxious strife?
If Light can thus deceive wherefore not Life.

-Joseph Blanco White.

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,-

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purple wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;

Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,—

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining arch-way through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no

more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!

While on my ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thy outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

-Oliver Wendell Holmes.