by the Author of "Rural Sonnets," "The Cathedral Bell," &c.
Originally published in Hood's Magazine (Henry Hurst) vol.5 #3 [#27] (Mar 1846).
If, from the gorgeous Sun, more genial rays,
To warm_and cheer humanity, unite;
His Sister-regent of the skies displays
A more suggestive, soul-communing light—
In this, the mystical and vast we trace;
In that, a festal joy for all our race.
Forth on the fancy's musings! o'er the sea,
The Moon creates a causeway with her beams,
Capacious in its shining pageantry,
And broad, and firm, tho' undulous, it seems;
Awe creeps upon us as the distance blends,
So glassy cold, with space that never ends;
And our thoughts reach it chasten'd and subdued.
The flesh is weak to grasp the spheral solitude.
Lo! moonlight on the waters—where, congeal'd,
The Frost-king piles them for his crystal halls,
And dwells on peaks whose whiteness is reveal'd
In light that daunts the gazer, yet enthralls.
Up, giddy mortal! up the dazzling steeps,
And shiver, like the sprites whom Dante shrin'd
In Ice; an avalanche beneath thee sweeps!—
The valleys shriek—look upward, not behind;
The fascination of the headlong mass
Might snatch thee after.—Onward, upward pass;
A shadow grows colossal, midst the range
Over against thee on thy slipp'ry height;
And, when thou mov'st, it moves—how ghastly strange
This spectre on the Snows, trac'd darkly to the sight!
Exchange the scene, and wandering hill and dale,
In milder regions, mark the lunar rays
Splash in the waterfall; or silv'ry pale
Dance on the stream wherewith the Zephyr plays;
Or flicking thro' some Vall Ambrosa's boughs,
Smile on yon pair, soul-deep in lovers' vows
Now, waft thee to the ocean-maze, wherein
Venice admires herself—like Eve beside
The fountain—and thy pilgrimage begin,
When the Moon's full upon her palac'd tide—
Or, at high summer, in the native clime,
To music, echoing from some woody shore,
Hail, 'neath the starry heavens, the light sublime
Which night, and night's chaste Queen, upon the waters pour.
Inner Temple, Jan. 1846.