Then day's bright star with blunted rays Is dimly seen the nearing sail; The sun-reflecting waves appear; When the full tides of evening flow, Rises in virgin lustre bright; And from the horizon seems to throw To the hush'd shore; and all the tranquil deep That tributary waters bear From precipices, dark with piny woods, The vast encircling seas within What endless swarms of creatures hide Of burnish'd scale and spiny fin! These providential instincts guide, And bid them know the annual tide, When from unfathom'd waves, that swell Beyond Fuego's stormy side, They come, to cheer the tribes that dwell In Boreal climes; and through his half year's night Give to the Lapland savage food and light. t From cliffs that pierce the northern sky, Baffled by many a sailing cloud, Track with wild wing the welcome shoal, Sons of the North! your streamy vales Though sweetly smile your tardy spring; To the broad frith and sheltering bay Riches, by Heaven's parental power supplied,The harvest of the far embracing tide. And where those fractured mountains lift To sea fowl give a rugged nest. VOL. I. SS But with instinctive love is dress'd The Eider's downy cradle; where The mother-bird her glossy breast Devotes, and, with maternal care And plumeless bosom, stems the toiling seas From heights, whence shuddering sense recoils, Hang perilous; and thus provide Revolving still, the waves that now Have borne perchance the Indian's prow, Or have, by currents swift, convey'd The relics of the tropic shade; And to the wondering Esquimaux have shown Leaves of strange shape,and fruits unlike their own. No more then let the' incurious say, No change this world of water shows, But as the tides the moon obey, Or tempests rave, or calms repose.— Show them, its bounteous breast bestows Beauty and use and harmony Works of the Power Supreme, who pour'd the flood Round the green peopled earth, and call'd it good! CHARLOTTE SMITH. THE SWALLOW. THE gorse is yellow on the heath, The banks with speedwell flowers are gay, The welcome guest of settled spring, Come, summer visitant, attach To my reed roof your nest of clay, As fables tell, an Indian sage, I wish I did his power possess, That I might learn, fleet bird, from thee, What our vain systems only guess, And know from what wide wilderness I would a little while restrain Your rapid wing that I might hear In Afric does the sultry gale Through spicy bower and palmy grove Were you in Asia? O, relate If there your fabled sister's woes She seem'd in sorrow to narrate; Or sings she but to celebrate Her nuptials with the rose. I would inquire how, journeying long But if, as colder breezes blow, You hide, though none know when or how, And linger torpid here; |