There is no phenomenon in nature more beautiful and splendid than the rising sun. The richest dress that human art can invent, the finest decorations, the most pompous equipage, the most superb ornaments in the palaces of kings, vanish and sink to nothing when compared with this beauty of nature. The sun appears with all the splendour of majesty, rising higher and higher, and the earth assumes a new aspect. Every creature rejoices and seems to receive a new life. The birds, with songs of joy, salute the source of light and day: every animal begins to move, and all feel themselves animated with new strength and spirit.-STURM.
But who the melodies of morn can tell;
The wild brook babbling down the mountain side;
The lowing herd; the sheepfold's simple bell;
The pipe of early shepherd dim descried
In the lone valley; echoing far and wide,
The clamorous horn along the cliffs above;
The hollow murmur of the ocean tide;
The hum of bees, the linnet's lay of love,
And the full choir that wakes the universal grove.
"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever."
The Spirit of Beauty unfurls her light,
And wheels her course in a joyous flight!
I know her track through the balmy air,
By the blossoms that cluster and whiten there :
She leaves the tops of the mountains green,
And gems the valley with crystal sheen.
At morn I know where she rested at night,
For the roses are gushing with dewy delight;
Then she mounts again, and around her flings
A shower of light from her purple wings,
Till the spirit is drunk with the music on high,
That silently fills it with ecstasy!
At noon she hies to a cool retreat,
Where bowering elms over waters meet;
She dimples the waves, where the green leaves dip,
That smiles as it curls like a maiden's lip,
When her tremulous bosom would hide, in vain,
From her lover the hope that she loves again.
At eve she hangs o'er the western sky
Dark clouds for a glorious canopy;
And round the skirts of each sweeping fold,
She paints a border of crimson and gold,
Where the lingering sunbeams love to stay,
When their source in his glory has passed away.
She hovers around us at twilight hour,
When her presence is felt with the deepest power;
She mellows the landscape and crowds the stream
With the shadows that flit like a fairy dream;
Still wheeling her flight through the gladsome air,
The Spirit of Beauty is everywhere.
"His compassions fail not. They are new every morning."-Lament. iii. 22, 23.
Hues of the rich unfolding morn,
That, ere the glorious sun be born,
By some soft touch invisible
Around his path are taught to swell.
Thou rustling breeze, so fresh and gay,
That dancest forth at opening day,
And brushing by with joyous wing,
Wakenest each little leaf to sing;
Ye fragrant clouds of dewy steam,
By which deep grove and tangled stream
Pay, for soft rains in season given,
Their tribute to the genial heaven.
Oh! timely happy, timely wise,
Hearts that with rising morn arise!
Eyes that the beam celestial view,
Which evermore makes all things new.
New every morning is the love
Our wakening and uprising prove;
Through sleep and darkness safely brought,
Restored to life, and power, and thought.
New mercies, each returning day,
Hover around us while we pray;
New perils past, new sins forgiven,
New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven.
If on our daily course our mind
Be set, to hallow all we find,
New treasures still, of countless price,
God will provide for sacrifice.
Old friends, old scenes will lovelier be,
As more of heaven in each we see:
Some softening gleam of love and prayer
Shall dawn on every cross and care.
The trivial round, the common task,
Will furnish all we ought to ask;
Room to deny ourselves; a road
To lead us, daily, nearer God.
Seek we no more, content with these!
Let present rapture, comfort, ease,
As heaven shall bid them, come and go;
The secret this of rest below.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit and flower,
Glistening with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild; then silent night,
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train.
MILTON.
A BRIGHT SUNNY NOON.
Who has not dream'd a world of bliss,
On a bright sunny noon like this,
While all around him seem'd to be
Just as in joyous infancy?
Who has not lov'd at such an hour-
Upon the heath, in birchen bower,
Lull'd in the poet's dreamy mood-
Its wild and sunny solitude?
Love you not then to list and hear
The crackling of the gorse flowers near-
The twittering of the bird that dwells
Among the heath's delicious bells?
When round your bed o'er fern and blade,
Insects in green and gold array'd-
The sun's gay tribes-have lightly stray'd;
While sweeter sound their humming wings
Than the proud minstrel's echoing strings.
The sun had set, but his expiring beams
Yet lingered in the west, and shed around
Beauty and softness o'er the woods and streams
With coming night's first tinge of shade embrowned.
There are emotions in that grateful hour
Of twilight and serenity, which steal
Upon the heart with more than wonted power-
Making more pure and tender all we feel-
Softening its very core as doth the shower
The thirsty glebe of summer.
The heavens look down on us with eyes of love,
And earth itself looks heavenly; the sleep
Of nature is around us, but above
Are beings that eternal vigils keep.
It was a lovely evening, in the spring time of the year; and in the soft stillness of the twilight, all nature was very calm and beautiful. The day had been fine and warm; but at the coming on of night the air grew cool, and in the mellowing distance, smoke was coming gently from the cottage chimneys. There were a thousand pleasant scents diffused around from young leaves and fresh buds; the cuckoo had been singing all day long, and was but just now hushed; the smell of earth, newly upturned-first breath of hope to the labourer, after his garden withered-was fragrant in the evening breeze. It was a time when most men cherish good resolves, and sorrow for the wasted past; when most men, looking on the shadows as they gather, think of that evening which must close on all, and that to-morrow which has none beyond. DICKENS.
Day's sinking fount now pours a milder flood,
And burnishes with deeper gold the green:
A lucid sun-glow paints the summer wood,
And the pleased eye smiles on the saffron scene.
The long-drawn shades announce advancing night;
With faintest breath the languid zephyr blows;
The unruffled trees sleep in the yellow light:
And all surrounding things have still repose.
Calm evening's tranquil pupil let me stray;
From hectic care, from sultry anger free;
All cool my bosom as abated day;
Nor clouded conscience by a frown from thee.
At this still hour, oft let me rove serene,
And catch the temper of the placid scene.
Now came still evening on, and twilight grey
Had in her sober livery all things clad.
Silence accompanied: for beast and bird,
Those to their grassy couch, these to their nests
Were slunk; all but the wakeful nightingale :
She, all night long, her amorous descant sung:
Silence was pleased. Now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires:-Hesperus,-that led
The starry host-rode brightest; till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty,-at length,
Apparent queen,-unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.-MILTON.
Night, sable goddess from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.
Silence how dead! and darkness how profound!
Nor eye, nor listening ear an object finds!
Creation sleeps. "Tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause—
An awful pause! prophetic of her end.
How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh,
Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear,
Were discord to the speaking quietude
That wraps this moveless scene.
Studded with stars unutterably bright,
Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls
Seems like a canopy which love had spread
To curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills,
Robed in a garment of untrodden snow-
Yon darksome rocks, whence icicles depend,
So stainless that their white and glittering spires
Tinge not the moon's pure beam-yon castled steep,
Whose banner hangeth o'er the time-worn tower
So idly, that wrapt fancy deemeth it
A metaphor of peace;-all form a scene
Where musing solitude might love to lift
Her soul above this sphere of earthliness;
Where silence undisturbed might watch alone,
So cold, so bright, so still.
|