’Twas night, and the cool and perfumed breeze,
Breath’d soft mid the boughs of the waving trees,
Or low to the wild wood-flowers it sigh’d,
While the tiny buds to its tones replied;
But when the gay music of fairy-glee,
In the clear, calm midnight rose merrily,
And a thousand glancing beings of air,
Like countless gems held their revels there,
It fled from the woods and the flowers away,
And stole to a silent room, where lay
A dying girl:—
Her mournful eyes
Look’d out from their tears on the dark’ning skies,
Where a single star in its glory shone,
Like a haughty heart, bereft and lone.
[130]
Round the marble brow waved the clust’ring hair,
And the tiny hands were clasp’d as in pray’r;
She spoke, and each low and trembling word
Was sad as the wail of the widow’d bird.
“Oh! sweet is the spell that the zephyr flings
As it sweeps o’er the wild harp’s silvery strings;
And soft is the murmur’d minstrelsy
Of the flashing waves on the summer sea;
And the rain drops breathe, as they near the earth,
A gladsome chorus of joy and mirth;
The blue-bells ring ever in tones of glee,
And a pleasant sound hath the humming bee;
And though strangely sad is the spirit’s sigh,
When the crimson clouds leave the evening sky,
Yet when sunbeams burst on the sleeping flowers,
With visions of streamlets and fragrant bowers,
With a flush of joy on their petals bright,
They ope with a chorus of wild delight.
The gem that gleams on the velvet vest,
That shelters each slumbering floweret’s breast,
And has whisper’d all night of its home on high,
Where its sisters dwell in the beaming sky,
Takes a sweeter tone when the dawning day
Bids it leave the earth on its heavenward way;
The dancing brook murmurs a joyous tale,
Of the leafy wood and mossy vale;
[131]
And have ye not heard, when the shades of night
Hung dark o’er the earth, and the stars were bright,
A soft, sweet tone like the violet’s song,
Or the lay of the waves as they glide along?
But no! it ............