AN EASTERN SCENE.

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Or at morn, when the magic of daylight awakes
A new wonder each minute, as slowly it breaks,
Hills, cupolas, fountains, call'd forth every one
Out of darkness, as they were just born of the Sun.
When the spirit of fragrance is up with the day,
From his harem of night-flowers stealing away;'
And the wind, full of wantonness, woos, like a lover,
The young aspen-trees till they tremble all over.
When the East is as warm as the light of first hopes,

And day with his banner of radiance unfurl'd, Shines in through the mountainous portal that opes, Sublime, from that valley of bliss to the world!

AN EASTERN SCENE.

Now upon Syria's land of roses
Softly the light of eve reposes,
And like a glory, the broad sun
Hangs over sainted Lebanon:

Whose head in wint'ry grandeur towers,
And whitens with eternal sleet,
While summer, in a vale of flowers,
Is sleeping rosy at his feet.

To one who looked from upper air,
O'er all th' enchanted regions there,
How beauteous must have been the glow,
The life, the sparkling from below!
Fair gardens, shining streams, with ranks
Of golden melons on their banks,
More golden where the sun-light falls,-
Gay lizards, glittering on the walls
Of ruin'd shrines, busy and bright,
As they were all alive with light ;—
And yet more splendid, numerous flocks
Of pigeons, settling on the rocks,
With their rich, restless wings, that gleam
Variously in the crimson beam

Of the warm west, as if inlaid

With brilliants from the mine, or made
Of tearless rainbows, such as span
Th' unclouded skies of Peristan !
And then, the mingling sounds that come
Of shepherd's ancient reed, with hum
Of the wild bees of Palestine,

Banqueting through the flowery vales— And, Jordan, those sweet banks of thine, And woods, so full of nightingales.

THE APPROACHING STORM.

THE day is louring-stilly black
Sleeps the grim wave, while heaven's rack,
Dispers'd and wild, 'twixt earth and sky
Hangs like a shattered canopy!

There's not a cloud in that blue plain
But tells of storm to come or past ;-
Here flying loosely as the mane

Of a young war-horse in the blast ;-
There, roll'd in masses dark and swelling,
As proud to be the thunder's dwelling!
While some, already burst and riven,
Seem melting down the verge of heaven;
As though the infant storm had rent
The mighty womb that gave him birth,
And having swept the firmament,

Was now in fierce career for earth.
On earth 'twas yet all calm around,
A pulseless silence, dread, profound,
More awful than the tempest's sound.
The diver steer'd for Ormus' bowers,
And moor'd his skiff till calmer hours;
The sea-birds, with portentous screech,
Flew fast to land ;--upon the beach
The pilot oft had paus'd, with glance
Turn'd upward to that wild expanse ;—

HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND.

And all was boding, drear, and dark
As her own soul when Hinda's bark
Went slowly from the Persian shore.—
No music tim'd her parting oar,*
Nor friends upon the lessening strand,
Linger'd, to wave the unseen hand,
Or speak the farewell, heard no more;—
But lone, unheeded, from the bay
The vessel takes its mournful way,
Like some ill-destin'd bark that steers
In silence through the Gate of Tears.f

405

From "Lalla Rookh."

SAMUEL ROGERS.

BORN, 1762.

HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND.

BLUE was the loch, the clouds were gone,
Ben-Lomond in his glory shone,

When, Luss, I left thee; when the breeze
Bore me from thy silver sands,

Thy kirkyard wall among the trees,
Where, gray with age, the dial stands;
That dial so well known to me!
Though many a shadow it hath shed,
Beloved sister, since with thee

The legend on the stone was read.

The fairy isles fled far away;
That with its woods and uplands green,
Where shepherd-huts are dimly seen,
And songs are heard at close of day;

"The Easterns used to set out on their longer voyages with music." -Harmer.

"The Gate of Tears, the straits or passage into the Red Sea, com. monly called Babelmandel. It received this name from the old Arabians on account of the danger of the navigation, and the number of shipwrecks by which it was distinguished; which induced them to consider as dead, and to wear mourning for all who had the boldness to hazard the passage through it into the Ethiopic ocean."-Richardson.

That, too, the deer's wild covert fled,
And that, the asylum of the dead:
While, as the boat went merrily,
Much of Rob Roy the boatman told;
His arm that fell below his knee,
His cattle ford and mountain hold.
Tarbat, thy shore I climbed at last;
And, thy shady region passed,
Upon another shore I stood,
And looked upon another flood,
Great Ocean's self! ('tis he who fills
That vast and awful depth of hills ;)
Where many an elf was playing round,
Who treads unshod his classic ground;
And speaks, his native rocks among,
As Fingal spoke, and Ossian sung.

Night fell, and dark and darker grew
That narrow sea, that narrow sky,
As o'er the glimmering waves we flew,
The sea-bird rustling, wailing by,
And now the grampus, half descried,
Black and huge above the tide;
The cliffs and promontories there.
Front to front, and broad and bare;
Each beyond each, with giant feet
Advancing as in haste to meet;

The shattered fortress, whence the Dane
Blew his shrill blast, nor rushed in vain,
Tyrant of the drear domain;

All into midnight shadow sweep,

When day springs upward from the deep! Kindling the waters in its flight,

The prow wakes splendour, and the oar, That rose and fell unseen before,

Flashes in a sea of light;

Glad sign and sure, for now we hail

Thy flowers, Glenfinnart, in the gale;

THE LAKE OF GENEVA.

And bright indeed the path should be,
That leads to friendship and to thee!

O blest retreat, and sacred too!
Sacred as when the bell of prayer
Tolled duly on the desert air,

And crosses decked thy summits blue.
Oft like some loved romantic tale,
Oft shall my weary mind recall,
Amid the hum and stir of men,
Thy beechen grove and waterfall,
Thy ferry with its gliding sail,
And her-the Lady of the Glen!

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THE LAKE OF GENEVA.

CLEAR, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
With the wide world I dwelt in, is a thing
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing

To waft me from distraction; once I loved
Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring
Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved,
That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.

It is the hush of night, and all between
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen,
Save darkened Jura, whose capt heights appear
Precipitously steep; and drawing near,
There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar,

Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more;