The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir :: :: University of Virginia Library

How lovely is this silent scene!
How beautiful, fair lamp of night,
On stirless woods, and lakes serene,
Thou sheddest forth thy holy light;
With beam as pure, with ray as bright,
As sorrow's tear from Woman's breast,
When mourning over days departed,
That robb'd her spirit of its rest,
And left her lone and broken-hearted!

II

Refulgent pilgrim of the sky,
Beneath thy march, within thy sight,
What varied realms outstretching lie!
Here landscapes rich with glory bright,
There lonely wastes of utter blight;
The nightingale upon the bough
Of cypress, here her song is pouring;
And there begirt with mounts of snow,
For food the famish'd bear is roaring!

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III

What marvel that the spirits high
Of eastern climes, and ancient days,
Should hail thee as a deity,
And altars to thine honour raise!
So lovely wert thou to the gaze
Of shepherds on Chaldean hills,
When summer flowers around were springing,
And when to thee a thousand rills
Throughout the quiet night were singing.

IV

And lo! the dwarfish Laplander,
Far from his solitary home,
Dismay'd, beholds the evening star,
While many a mile remains to roam:
Thou lightest up the eastern dome,
And, in his deer-drawn chariot, he
Is hurl'd along the icy river;
And leaps his sunken heart to see
The light in his own casement quiver.

V

Nor beautiful the less art thou,
When Ocean's gentlest breezes fan,
With gelid wing, the feverish glow
That daylight sheds on Indostan!

341

There, on the glittering haunts of man,
And on the amaranthine bowers,
The glory of thy smile reposes,
On hedgerows, white with jasmine flowers,
And minarets o'erhung with roses.

VI

The exile on a foreign shore
Dejected sits, and turns his eye
To thee, in beauty evermore,
Careering through a cloudless sky.
A white cloud comes, and, passing by,
Veils thee a moment from his sight;
Then, as he rests beneath the shadows,
He thinks of many as sweet a night,
When glad he roam'd his native meadows.

VII

Though years in stayless current roll,
Thou art as full of glory yet,
As when to Shakspeare's glowing soul,
Where mightiness and meekness met,
Thou shon'st upon his Juliet;
Tipping with silver all the grove,
And gleaming on the cheek of Beauty,
Who durst forsake, for Romeo's love,
The mandates of paternal duty.

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VIII

Enthroned amid the cloudless blue,
Majestic, silent, and alone,
Above the fountains of the dew,
Thou glidest on, and glidest on,
To shoreless seas, and lands unknown.
The presence of thy face appears,
Thou eldest born of Beauty's daughters,
A spirit traversing the spheres,
And ruling o'er the pathless waters.