The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery :: :: University of Virginia Library

The booming echoes of the minute-gun
Hark! how they roll from London's castle-towers,
Proclaiming the sepulchral rites are done:
Yet, ere the World resume its wonted powers,
While dying notes from many a distant knell
Sink into silence with a sad farewell,
A moralising gloom on man descends
And not unfitly with the Pageant blends.

NATURE'S ANALOGY.

In red magnificence of evening-dyes,
Oft like a paradise of cloud there lies
A pomp aërial, such as poets love,
When beauty consecrates the heavens above.
There, musing on some breezy height,
Enthroned in loveliness and light,
A lone spectator stands to view
The day-god wear his parting hue,
When gliding down the crimson'd west
He wraps him in his regal vest.—
How exquisite awhile to be
Surrender'd up to Sky and Sea!
As drinking in the splendid whole
He mingles with Creation's soul,
While lisping waves, with pensive lull,
And cadence faintly-beautiful,
Chime with the hour, till earth and air
An elemental magic wear,
And so entrance impassion'd Hearts,
The soul forgets, the Scene departs.—
But while they dream, the cloud-pomp dies
A beauteous death along the skies;
The pallid dews of night descend,
And dimness and dejection end
Those witching spells of sunset-hour
Which give to poesy its power.