TO EVENING. IF aught of oaten stop or pastoral song Thy springs, and dying gales; O nymph reserved, while now the bright-hair'd Sun Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, With brede ethereal wove, O'erhang his wavy bed;— Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing; Or where the beetle winds His small but sullen horn, As oft he rises midst the twilight path, To breathe some soften'd strain, Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening May not unseemly with its stillness suit; [vale ; As, musing slow, I hail Thy genial loved return! For when thy folding star arising shows May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, Langhorne's edit. And many a nymph who wreaths her brows with sedge, And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still, The pensive Pleasures sweet Prepare thy shadowy car. Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene; Or find some ruin, midst its dreary dells, Whose walls more awful nod By thy religious gleams. Or if chill blustering winds or driving rain And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires; The gradual dusky veil. While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves; And rudely rends thy robes; So long regardful of thy quiet rule, And love thy favourite name! COLLINS. ODES TO SLEEP. I. O THOU whose light touch sheds the opiate dews Of bland Oblivion; thou whose power Man's wearied drooping frame renews, Oft as thou deign'st thy influence shower In Fancy's gorgeous garb and imagery sublime : That potent necromantic spell Which holds the soul in wonder's trance, Oft has the bard whom genius warms, And sketch'd the high wrought scenes, and bade them glow In radiant hues of light, and Fiction's solemn show. But far, far greater boast was thine When Inspiration led thy band; Alarm with prodigy and dire portent, Thou camest; but which when Wisdom's self be held, Rightly she augured what thy visions meant, Shadow'd in doubtful hues by some immortal hand; When breathing mystic truths divine, Full many a seer and prophet thou hast taught, Behests of dread command and import high; In cloudless perspective the future caught: Converse with man; the midnight hour And coruscations of eternal day Waved, queen of silence! o'er thy darksome bower; Heaven oped her golden portals wide, And far within her glittering courts were spied The' angelic phalanx robed in vestments bright* To earth descending slow from yon fair worlds of light. And still thy gracious forms await The Beatific Vision to the sight. Unfolding opens heaven; then floods the scene, And tyrants oft have heard with dread The cry of vengeance thundering in their ear, * Genesis xxviii. 12. While the pale spectre Fear Hangs her dire portents round the regal bed, Horrors and woes and death: Night's demons loud Shriek to the moon afar, from many a passing cloud. Beneath the dim Earth's centre deep, The shadow of the evening strays, And busy murmurs creep: While dreams in clusters thick are spread, Like hovering mists about thy head, That with fantastic wing thy dewy eyelids sweep. About thy sable standard pass Of Hopes and Fears a mingled mass, |