THE SPLENDOR FALLS.

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,

And as silently steal away.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

The Splendor Falls.

HE splendor falls on castle walls,

THE

And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes,

And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow; set the wild echoes flying;
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going;
O sweet and far from cliff and scar

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying;
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love! they die on yon rich sky;

They faint on hill, or field, or river:

Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

And grow forever and forever.

Blow, bugle, blow; set the wild echoes flying;

And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

Song of the Stars.

HEN the radiant morn of creation broke,

WHEN

And the world in the smile of God awoke,

And the empty realms of darkness and death

Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath,

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And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame,
From the void abyss by myriads came,→
In the joy of youth as they darted away,
Through the widening wastes of space to play,
Their silver voice in chorus rang,

And this was the song the bright ones sang:

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Away, away, through the wide, wide sky,
The fair, blue fields that before us lie,-

Each sun, with the worlds that round him roll,
Each planet, poised on her turning pole;

With her isles of green, and her clouds of white,
And her waters that lie like fluid light.

"For the source of glory uncovers his face,
And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space;
And we drink as we go the luminous tides
In our ruddy air and our blooming sides:
Lo! yonder the living splendors play;
Away, on our joyous path, away!

"Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar,

In the infinite azure, star after star,

How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly pass !

How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass !

And the path of the gentle winds is seen,

Where the small waves dance, and the young woods lean.

"And see, where the brighter day-beams pour,
How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower;
And the morn and eve, with their pomp of hues,
Shift o'er the bright planets, and shed their dews;
And 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming ground,
With her shadowy cone the night goes round!

"Away, away! in our blossoming bowers,
In the soft air wrapping these spheres of ours,

THE CLOUD.

In the seas and fountains that shine with morn,
See, Love is brooding, and Life is born;
And breathing myriads are breaking from night,
To rejoice, like us, in motion and light."

Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres,
To weave the dance that measures the years!
Glide on, in the glory and gladness sent
To the furthest wall of the firmament,-
The boundless visible smile of Him,

To the veil of whose brow your lamps are dim!

WILLIAM C. BRYANT.

I

The Cloud.

BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid

In their noon-day dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain ; And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,

And their great pines groan aghast, And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers
Lightning, my pilot, sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder;
It struggles and howls at fits.

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Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,

This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains ;

And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,

When the morning star shines dead.

As, on the jag of a mountain crag

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle, alit, one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings.

And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,

Its ardors of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall

From the depth of heaven above,

With wings folded I rest on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

That orbéd maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn ;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer:

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,

THE CLOUD.

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl ;

The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,

Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof,

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch, through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-colored bow;

The sphere-fire above, its soft colors wove,
While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of earth and water,

And the nursling of the sky;

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;

I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain, when, with never a stain,

The pavilion of heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,

I arise and upbuild it again.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

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