MYS

SONNET TO NIGHT.

YSTERIOUS Night! when our first parent knew
Thee from report divine, 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 rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,

And lo! creation widened in man's view.

Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O Sun? or who could find,
Whilst fly 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.

G

GOOD-NIGHT.

OOD-NIGHT!

Be thy cares forgotten quite!
Day approaches to its close;
Weary nature seeks repose.
Till the morning dawns in light,
Good-night!

Go to rest!

Close thine eyes in slumber blest!
Now 'tis still and quiet all;

Hear we but the watchman's call,

And the night is still and blest.

Go to rest!

Good-Night!

Slumber till the morning light!
Slumber till the dawn of day

Brings its sorrow with its ray.
Sleep without or fear or fright!

Our Father wakes! good-night! good-night!

H

NIGHT.

WOW beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh, Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear, Were discord to the speaking quietude

That wraps this moveless scene.

Heaven's ebon vault,

Studded with stars unutterably bright,

Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls,
Seems like a canopy which love has spread

To curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills,
Robed in a garment of untrodden snow;
Yon darksome rocks, whence icicles depend,

So stainless, that their white and glittering spires
Tinge not the moon's pure beam; yon castled steep
Whose banner hangeth o'er the time-worn tower
So idly, that rapt fancy deemeth it

A metaphor of peace; all form a scene
Where musing solitude might love to lift
Her soul above this sphere of earthliness;
Where silence, undisturbed, might watch alone,
So cold, so bright, so still.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley.