- When low-hung clouds each star of summer hide, 260 And fireless are the valleys far and wide,
Where the brook brawls along the public 2 road
Dark with bat-haunted ashes stretching broad,
3 Oft has she taught them on her lap to lay
The shining glow-worm; or, in heedless play,
Toss it from hand to hand, disquieted;
While others, not unseen, are free to shed
Green unmolested light upon their mossy bed.*
Oh! when the sleety showers her path assail, And like a torrent roars the headstrong gale; No more her breath can thaw their fingers cold, Their frozen arms her neck no more can fold;
I hear, while in the forest depth he sees,
The Moon's fix'd gaze between the opening trees,
In broken sounds her elder grief demand,
And skyward lift, like one that prays, his hand,
If, in that country, where he dwells afar,
His father views that good, that kindly star;
-Ah me! all light is mute amid the gloom,
The interlunar cavern of the tomb.
In broken sounds her elder child demand,
While toward the sky he lifts his pale bright hand,
The distant clock forgot, and chilling dew,
Pleas'd thro' the dusk their breaking smiles to view,
Only in the edition of 1793.
Delighted, with the glow-worm's harmless ray
Toss'd light from hand to hand; while on the ground
Small circles of green radiance gleam around.
Oh! when the bitter showers her path assail, And roars between the hills the torrent gale, sleety showers
1 Weak roof a cowering form two babes to shield, And faint the fire a dying heart can yield! Press the sad kiss, fond mother! vainly fears Thy flooded cheek to wet them with its tears; 2 No tears can chill them, and no bosom warms, Thy breast their death-bed, coffined in thine arms!
Sweet are the sounds that mingle from afar,
Heard by calm lakes, as peeps the folding star,
Where the duck dabbles 'mid the rustling sedge,
And feeding pike starts from the water's edge,
Or the swan stirs the reeds, his neck and bill
Wetting, that drip upon the water still;
And heron, as resounds the trodden shore,
Shoots upward, darting his long neck before.
Scarce heard, their chattering lips her shoulder chill,
And her cold back their colder bosoms thrill;
All blind she wilders o'er the lightless heath,
Led by Fear's cold wet hand, and dogg'd by Death;
Death, as she turns her neck the kiss to seek,
Breaks off the dreadful kiss with angry shriek.
Snatch'd from her shoulder with despairing moan,
She clasps them at that dim-seen roofless stone.
"Now ruthless Tempest launch thy deadliest dart!
Fall fires-but let us perish heart to heart."
The first, third, and fourth of these couplets were omitted from the edition of 1820. The whole passage was withdrawn in 1827.
Soon shall the Light'ning hold before thy head
His torch, and shew them slumbering in their bed,
Only in the edition of 1793.
While, by the scene compos'd, the breast subsides,
Nought wakens or disturbs it's tranquil tides;
Nought but the char that for the may-fly leaps,
And breaks the mirror of the circling deeps;
Or clock, that blind against the wanderer born
Drops at his feet, and stills his droning horn.
Now, with religious awe, the farewell light Blends with the solemn colouring of night;1
'Mid groves of clouds that crest the mountain's brow, And round the west's proud lodge their shadows throw, Like Una * shining on her gloomy way,
The half-seen form of Twilight roams astray;
Shedding, through paly loop-holes mild and small,
Gleams that upon the lake's still bosom fall; 2
3 Soft o'er the surface creep those lustres pale
-The whistling swain that plods his ringing way
Where the slow waggon winds along the bay;
The sught of swallow flocks that twittering sweep,
The solemn curfew swinging long and deep;
The talking boat that moves with pensive sound,
Or drops his anchor down with plunge profound;
Of boys that bathe remote the faint uproar,
And restless piper wearying out the shore;
These all to swell the village murmurs blend,
That soften'd from the water-head descend.
While in sweet cadence rising small and still
The far-off minstrels of the haunted hill,
As the last bleating of the fold expires,
Tune in the mountain dells their water lyres.
Only in the edition of 1793.
Thence, from three paly loopholes mild and small,
Slow lights upon the lake's still bosom fall,
Beyond the mountain's giant reach that hides
In deep determin'd gloom his subject tides.
-Mid the dark steeps repose the shadowy streams,
As touch'd with dawning moonlight's hoary gleams,
As the great eye of Heaven shined bright,
And made a sunshine in that shady place.
This passage is in The Fairy Queen, book I. canto iii. stanza 4.-ED. Sugh, a Scotch word, expressive, as Mr. Gilpin explains it, of the sound of the motion of a stick through the air, or of the wind passing through the trees. See Burns' Cottar's Saturday Night.-W. W. 1793. The line is in stanza ii., l. 1:
November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh.-ED.
Tracking the motions of the fitful gale.1
With restless interchange at once the bright
Wins on the shade, the shade upon the light.
No favoured eye was e'er allowed to gaze
On lovelier spectacle in faery days;
When gentle Spirits urged a sportive chase,
Brushing with lucid wands the water's face;
While music, stealing round the glimmering deeps,
Charmed the tall circle of the enchanted steeps.
-The lights are vanished from the watery plains:
No wreck of all the pageantry remains.
Unheeded night has overcome the vales:
On the dark earth the wearied vision fails;
The latest lingerer of the forest train,
The lone black fir, forsakes the faded plain ;
Last evening sight, the cottage smoke, no more,
Lost in the thickened darkness, glimmers hoar;
And, towering from the sullen dark-brown mere,
Like a black wall, the mountain-steeps appear.2
Long streaks of fairy light the wave illume
With bordering lines of intervening gloom,
The second and third of these couplets were cancelled in the edition of 1815, and the whole passage was withdrawn in 1827.
Soft o'er the surface creep the lustres pale
Tracking with silvering path the changeful gale.
those lustres pale
Tracking the fitful motions of the gale.
'Tis restless magic all; at once the bright*
Breaks on the shade, the shade upon the light,
Fair Spirits are abroad; in sportive chase
Brushing with lucid wands the water's face,
While music stealing round the glimmering deeps
Charms the tall circle of th' enchanted steeps.
-As thro' th' astonished woods the notes ascend,
The mountain streams their rising song suspend;
Below Eve's listening Star, the sheep walk stills
* This long passage occupies, in the edition of 1793, the place of lines 297-314 in the final text given above.-ED.
-Now o'er the soothed accordant heart we feel
A sympathetic twilight slowly steal,
And ever, as we fondly muse, we find
The soft gloom deepening on the tranquil mind.
Stay! pensive, sadly-pleasing visions, stay!
Ah no! as fades the vale, they fade away:
Yet still the tender, vacant gloom remains;
Still the cold cheek its shuddering tear retains.
It's drowsy tinklings on th' attentive hills;
The milkmaid stops her ballad, and her pail
Stays it's low murmur in th' unbreathing vale;
No night-duck clamours for his wilder'd mate,
Aw'd, while below the Genii hold their state.
-The pomp is fled, and mute the wondrous strains,
No wrack of all the pageant scene remains,
* So vanish those fair Shadows, human Joys,
But Death alone their vain regret destroys.
Unheeded Night has overcome the vales,
On the dark earth the baffl'd vision fails,
If peep between the clouds a star on high,
There turns for glad repose the weary eye;
The latest lingerer of the forest train,
The lone-black fir, forsakes the faded plain ;
Last evening sight, the cottage smoke no more,
Lost in the deepen'd darkness, glimmers hoar;
High towering from the sullen dark-brown mere,
Like a black wall, the mountain steeps appear,
Thence red from different heights with restless gleam
Small cottage lights across the water stream,
Nought else of man or life remains behind
To call from other worlds the wilder'd mind,
Till pours the wakeful bird her solemn strains
+ Heard by the night-calm of the watry plains.
-No purple prospects now the mind employ
Glowing in golden sunset tints of joy,
But o'er the sooth'd .
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Only in the edition of 1793.
* "So break those glittering shadows, human joys" (YOUNG).-W.W. 1793. The line occurs Night V, The Complaint, 1. 1042, or l. 27 from the end. -ED.
"Charming the night-calm with her powerful song." A line of one of our older poets.-W. W. 1793.
This line I have been unable to discover, but see Webster and Dekker in Westward Hoe, iv. c. "Charms with her excellent voice an awful silence through all this building."-ED.
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