THE OWL.
High rides the moon amid the fleecy clouds,
That glisten as they float athwart her disk;
Sweet is the glimpse that for a moment plays
Among these mouldering pinnacles; but hark
That dismal cry! it is the wailing owl,
Night long she mourns, perched in some vacant niche,
Or time-rent crevice; sometimes to the woods
She bends her silent, slowly-moving wing,
And on some leafless tree, dead of old age,
Sits watching for her prey; but should the foot
Of man intrude into her solemn shades,
Startled, he hears the fragile, breaking branch
Crash as she rises; farther in the gloom
To deeper solitude she wings her way.
Rev. James Grahame.