University of Virginia Library


184

To Mavis.

Sweet Mavis! at this cool delicious hour
Of gloaming, with a pensive quietness
Hushes the odorous air,—with what a power
Of impulse unsubdued, thou dost express
Thyself a spirit! While the silver dew
Holy as manna on the meadow falls,
Thy song's impassioned clarity, trembling through
This omnipresent stillness, disenthrals
The soul to adoration. First I heard
A low thick lubric gurgle, soft as love,
Yet sad as memory, thro' the silence poured
Like starlight. But the mood intenser grows,
Precipitate rapture quickens, move on move
Lucidly linked together, till the close.