AN ALPINE STORM. The sky is changed!-and such a change! Oh night, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among And this is in the night :-Most glorious night! Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,A portion of the tempest and of thee! How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! And now again 'tis black, and now, the glee Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth. Now where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between Which blighted theirlife's bloom, and then departed:- Of years all winters,-war within themselves to wage. Now, where the quick Rhone thus has cleft his way, The brightest through these parted hills hath forked That in such gaps as desolation worked, There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurked. Sky, mountains, rivers, winds, lake, lightnings! ye! Of what in me is sleepless,-if I rest. But where of ye, oh tempests! is the goal? Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest FAREWELL TO ENGLAND. "Adicu, adieu! my native shore The Night-winds sign, the breakers roar Yon Sun that sets upon he sea My native Land-Good night! "A few short hours and He will rise And I shall hail the main and skies. Its hearth is desolate; Wild weeds are gathering on the wall; My dog howls at the gate. "And now I'm in the world alone, Till fed by stranger hands; "With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go Athwart the foaming brine; Nor care what land thou bear'st me to, Welcome, welcome ye dark-blue waves! AN ITALIAN SUNSET The moon is up and yet it is not night-Sunset divides the sky with her—a sea Of glory streams along the Alpine height Of blue Friuli's mountains; Heaven is free From clouds, but of all colours seems to be Melted to one vast Iris of the West, Where the day joins the past eternity; While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest Floats through the azure air—an island of the blest! A single star is at her side, and reigns With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still Which streams upon her stream, and glassed within it glows, Filled with the face of heaven, which, from afar, And now they change; a paler shadow strews The last still loveliest, till--'tis gone--and all is gray THE OCEAN. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll! The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee-Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, where are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts:-not so thou. Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. |