That from the imperishable source And in the current melt away. Now in a glassy sheet it glides; Now in some Naiad grotto hides; Awhile the ivied hollow slakes, Then from its dark concealment breaks, And flowery marsh and meadow laves With all its labyrinth of waves. Foaming, now, it rushes by ; Now it slumbers silently. Athwart those mazes serpentine The lonely angler sweeps his line; Now every hue and form retires, And in uncertain gloom expires. For lurking Darkness hastes to fling The woods in lofty grandeur towering, Seem woven with the twilight shade: O'er mossy mount and dell embowering, They stretch their leafy colonnade, And tissued with the arching sky, Inweave a solemn canopy. How silent is the gloom! How deep It is the hour of Nature's sleep; It is the world's repose. TO THE NIGHTINGALE. "Ah me! ah me! the nightingale's sweet lot! AGAMEMNON. O RARE Sir Nightingale, what love-sick bard, Keeping in vain his nightly guard, Did first mistake for notes of kindred sadness Thy song of love and gladness? That song of compass and of power, Which startling midnight's sober hour, The owls and bats, with jealous hate, Those birds of night legitimate, Resent as far too light and free, And savouring much of revelry. Thou sad! whose heart such love discloses ! Thou, spring's gay courtier! Thou, the rose's Fond paramour in foreign bowers— Though, in this Christian land of ours, Of nuptial bliss and wedded truth, In notes that seem to tell its blisses In set-to-music kisses. Thy trill, and jug, and gurgling murmur, In lark-like strain or whistle shrill, (For who but she the voice can own, Which doth so sweetly iterate That same wild, touching monotone?) Then, mellow'd down, an under-strain, Like birdish laughter, as again The summons comes, a sweet soprana O wondrous bird! thy varied measure, Who but an unblest lover could Have fancied set in minor mood? Who but the votary of folly Have call'd it melancholy? To me that song denotes no less To me it a long tale unravels Of airy voyages, Persian travels, Gay pranks in summer's fairest bowers, Her violet-banks, her blue-bell glades, |