THE SKIES.

Av! gloriously thou standest there,
Beautiful, boundless firmament!

That, swelling wide o'er earth and air,
And round the horizon bent,

With thy bright vault, and sapphire wall,
Dost overhang and circle all.

Far, far below thee, tall old trees
Arise, and piles built up of old,
And hills, whose ancient summits freeze
In the fierce light and cold.

The eagle soars his utmost height,

Yet far thou stretchest o'er his flight.

Thou hast thy frowns-with thee on high The storm has made his airy seat, Beyond that soft blue curtain lie

His stores of hail and sleet.

Thence the consuming lightnings break,

There the strong hurricanes awake.

Yet art thou prodigal of smiles

Smiles, sweeter than thy frowns are stern: Earth sends, from all her thousand isles,

A shout at thy return.

The glory that comes down from thee,
Bathes, in deep joy, the land and sea.

The sun, the gorgeous sun is thine,

The pomp that brings and shuts the day, The clouds that round him change and shine, The airs that fan his way.

Thence look the thoughtful stars, and there

The meek moon walks the silent air.

The sunny Italy may boast

The beauteous tints that flush her skies,
And lovely, round the Grecian coast,
May thy blue pillars rise.

I only know how fair they stand
Around my own beloved land.

And they are fair—a charm is theirs,

That earth, the proud green earth, has notWith all the forms, and hues, and airs,

That haunt her sweetest spot.
We gaze upon thy calm pure sphere,

And read of Heaven's eternal year.

Oh, when, amid the throng of men,

The heart grows sick of hollow mirth, How willingly we turn us then

Away from this cold earth,

And look into thy azure breast,

For seats of innocence and rest!

"I CANNOT FORGET WITH WHAT FERVID DEVOTION."

I CANNOT forget with what fervid devotion
I worshipped the visions of verse and of fame.
Each gaze at the glories of earth, sky, and ocean,
To my kindled emotions, was wind over flame.

And deep were my musings in life's early blossom,
Mid the twilight of mountain groves wandering long;
How thrilled my young veins, and how throbbed my full bosom,
When o'er me descended the spirit of song.

'Mong the deep-cloven fells that for ages had listened
To the rush of the pebble-paved river between,
Where the kingfisher screamed and gray precipice glistened,
All breathless with awe have I gazed on the scene;

Till I felt the dark power o'er my reveries stealing,
From his throne in the depth of that stern solitude,
And he breathed through my lips, in that tempest of feeling.
Strains lofty or tender, though artless and rude.

N

Bright visions! I mixed with the world, and ye faded;
No longer your pure rural worshipper now;
In the haunts your continual presence pervaded,
Ye shrink from the signet of care on my brow.

In the old mossy groves on the breast of the mountain,
In deep lonely glens where the waters complain,
By the shade of the rock, by the gush of the fountain,
I seek your loved footsteps, but seek them in vain.

Oh, leave not, forlorn and for ever forsaken,

Your pupil and victim to life and its tears! But sometimes return, and in mercy awaken

The glories ye showed to his earlier years.