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Form, float, and die in all their phantom joy.
At length the Sun is throned; but from his face
A flush of beauty o'er Creation flows,
That brightens into rapturous farewell!
Then faints to paleness; for the day hath sunk
Beneath the waters, dash'd with ruby dyes,
And Twilight in her nun-like meekness comes;
The air is fragrant with the soul of flowers,
The breeze comes panting like a child at play,
While birds, day-worn, are couch'd in leafy bowers,
And, calm as clouds, the sunken billows sleep:
The dimness of a dream o'er Nature steals,
Yet hallows it; a hush'd enchantment reigns;
The mountains to a mass of mellowing shade
Are turn'd, and stand like temples of the night:
While field and forest, fading into gloom,
Depart, and rivers whisper sounds of fear.

ANOTHER SUNSET.

But lo! again the magic sunset woos: The heavens are flow'ring with a rosy mass Of splendor, richly hued; and, floating on, It deepens round the dying sun, who glares With fierce redundancy awhile, then sinks Away, like glory from Ambition's eye. Behind him-many a cloud-idolater

Will say,-what rocks, and hills, and waves of light!
Magnificent confusion! such as beam'd

When the rash boy-god charioted the skies,
And made a burning chaos of the clouds!

AN ENGLISH LANDSCAPE.

Here alone,

With Summer hymning through her haunted vales, 'Tis beauty, bloom, and brightness all! How rich The wooing luxury of floral meads,

Reposing in the noon; where scented winds
Exult, and many a happy brooklet sings:
Sure Admiration might romance it here!

Tall mansions, shadow'd through patrician trees,
Those brown-spread farms, grey villages and cots,
With castled relics, and cathedral piles-
Where dreaming Solitude may muse and sigh,
Enchant dead ages from their tombs, or hear
The dark soliloquy of ancient Time,—
Adorn the landscape, and delight the view:
While haggard rocks, and heaven-aspiring hills,
Balking the ocean, here and there create
A mountain charm, to solemnize the scene.

LONDON.

Myriads of domes, and temples huge, or high,
And thickly wedded, like the ancient trees
That in unviolated forests frown;

Myriads of streets, whose river-windings flow
With viewless billows of unweary sound;
Myriads of hearts in full commotion mix'd,
From morn to noon, from noon to night again,
Through the wide realm of whirling passion borne,—
And there is London!

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But, Mammon! thou almighty friend of Hell,
Sure London is thy ever-royal seat,
Thy chosen capital, thy matchless home!
Where rank idolaters, of every lot

And land, do bow them to the basest dust
That falsehood, flattery, or cunning treads,
From dawn to eve, and serve thee with as true
A love as ever angel served his God!
See, how the hard and greedy worldlings crowd,
With toiling motion, through the foot-worn ways;
The sour and sullen, wretched, rack'd and wild,—
The whole vile circle of uneasy slaves.
Mark one, with features of ferocious hue;
Another, carved by villany's own hand

A visage wears, and through the trait'rous blood

The spirit works, like venom from the soul!

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What rush and roar unceasing! and how strange
A mass of objects, as I move along
Invisible amid these floods of life

I see. A chaos of unnumber'd hearts,-
Beating and bounding, charged with great design,

And making Fate, at every pulse, to feel,—
Before me acts its mighty tragedy!

ANOTHER LANDSCAPE.

Here all that can soft worship claim, or tone The sweet sobriety of tender thought,

Is thine: the sky of blue intensity,

Or charm'd by sunshine into picture-clouds,

That make bright landscapes when they blush abroad,— The dingle grey, and wooded copse, with hut

And hamlet, nestling in the bosky vale,

And spires brown peeping o'er the ancient elms,

And steepled cities, faint and far away,

With all that bird and meadow, brook and gale
Impart, are mingled for admiring eyes
That love to banquet on thy blissful scene.

A THIRD LANDSCAPE.

Dilated, as with gladness, glows the blue
O'erhanging sky, untinctured with a cloud :
Around me, hills on hills are greenly piled,
Each crowning each in billowy ascent,
And beautiful array: a breeze is up,
In bird-like motion winging the bright air;
Or by the flow'rets, giddy with delight,
And dancing golden in the meadow-pomp.-
Nor am I lonesome in this hour of bliss:
The shining flocks that speckle the glad fields,
The larks and butterflies that tint their path
With beauty, and yon group of happy babes,
Fit company for sunbeams and for flowers,
So brightly innocent they seem,-partake
The dreamy joy of this romantic hour.
And thou, beneath me in thy waveless mood

Luxuriant spread, with ripples twinkling-gay

As insect-wings that flutter in the sun,—

Calm Ocean!

A SEA-SHORE SCENE.

Some musing wand'rer by the shore I see, Weaving his island-fancies.-Round him, rock And cliff, whose grey trees mutter to the wind, And streams down rushing with a torrent ire: The sky seems craggy, with her cloud-piles hung, Deep-mass'd, as though embodied thunder lay And darken'd in a dream of havoc there!Before him, Ocean, yelling in the blast, Wild as the death-wail of a drowning host: The surges,―be they tempests as they roll, Lashing their fury into living foam,

Yon war-ship shall outbrave them all!-her sails Resent the winds, and their remorseless howl; And when she ventures the abyss of waves, Remounts, expands her wings, and then-away! Proud as an eagle dashing through the clouds.

A CHURCH-YARD.

How meekly piled, how venerably graced This hamlet fane! by mellowing age imbrown'd, And freckled like a rock of sea-worn hue. No marble tombs of agonizing pomp Are here; but turf-graves of unfading green, Where loved, yet lowly, generations sleep: And o'er them many a Sabbath sigh is heaved From hearts that live on sadness from the tomb. And such is thine, lone muser! by yon grave Now ling'ring, with a soul-expressive eye Of sorrow. Corn-fields glowing brown, and bright With promise, sumptuous in the noon-glare seen; The meadows, speckled with a homeward tribe Of village matrons, sons, and holy sires,The hymning birds, all music as they soar, And those twin brooks, so beautifully glad,

That whisper happy secrets to the wind,-
Such life and beauty by the landscape breathed,
And yet, a tomb-shade overclouds it all!
A church-yard! 'tis a homely word, yet full
Of feeling; and a sound that o'er the heart
Might shed religion. In the gloom of graves
I read the curse primeval, and the Voice
That wreak'd it, seems to whisper by these tombs
Of village quiet, that around me lie

In green humility :-can Life, the dead
Among, be musing, nor to me advance

The spirit of her thought? True, Nature wears
No rustic mourning here: in golden play

Her sprightly grass-flowers wave: the random breeze
Hums in the noon, or with yon froward boughs
A murm'ring quarrel wakes: and yet how oft
In such a haunt, the insuppressive sigh
Is heard, while feelings that may pilot years

To glory, spring from out a minute's gloom!

In the following I have ventured to mark with italics the expressions which appear to me new, picturesque, true, or beautiful, in

A STORM.

But lo! the heavens are ominously gloom'd,
Methinks, as though they frown'd a dark response.
Erewhile, and star-troops in their island glow
Around the wan enchantress of the skies

Appear'd, while lovingly the azure lay

Between them, softer than the lid of sleep.—

But now, all pregnant with portentous ire

They threaten, muffling up the pomp of night.—
There is a gasping in the heated air,

A wing-like flutter in the tim'rous boughs,
And sigh, and sound, from out the heart of things
Invisible, breathed forth;-the Storm awakes!
A thousand thunder-wombs the sky oppress,

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