SUMMER MORNING LANDSCAPE.—DELTA.
The eyelids of the morning are awake;
The dews are disappearing from the grass;
The sun is o'er the mountains; and the trees,
Moveless, are stretching through the blue of heaven,
Exuberantly green. All noiseless
The shadows of the twilight fleet away,
And draw their misty legion to the west,
Seen for awhile, 'mid the salubrious air,
Suspended in the silent atmosphere,
As in Medina's mosque Mahomet's tomb,—
Up from the coppice, on exulting wing,
Mounts, mounts the skylark through the clouds of dawn,—
The clouds, whose snow-white canopy is spread
Athwart, yet hiding not, at intervals,
The azure beauty of the summer sky;
And, at far distance heard, a bodiless note
Pours down, as if from cherub stray'd from Heaven!
Maternal Nature! all thy sights and sounds
Now breathe repose, and peace, and harmony.
The lake's unruffled bosom, cold and clear,
Expands beneath me, like a silver veil
Thrown o'er the level of subjacent fields,
Revealing, on its conscious countenance,
The shadows of the clouds that float above:—
Upon its central stone the heron sits
Stirless,—as in the wave its counterpart,—
Looking, with quiet eye, towards the shore
Of dark-green copse-wood, dark, save, here and there,
Where spangled with the broom's bright aureate flowers.—
The blue-winged sea-gull, sailing placidly
Above his landward haunts, dips down alert
His plumage in the waters, and, anon,
With quicken'd wing, in silence re-ascends.—
Whence comest thou, lone pilgrim of the wild?
Whence wanderest thou, lone Arab of the air?
Where makest thou thy dwelling-place? Afar,
O'er inland pastures, from the herbless rock,
Amid the weltering ocean, thou dost hold,
At early sunrise, thy unguided way,—
The visitants of Nature's varied realms,—
The habitant of Ocean, Earth, and Air,—
Sailing with sportive breast, mid wind and wave,
And, when the sober evening draws around
Her curtains, clasp'd together by her Star,
Returning to the sea-rock's breezy peak.
And now the wood engirds me, the tall stems
Of birch and beech tree hemming me around,
Like pillars of some natural temple vast;
And, here and there, some giant pines ascend,
Briareus-like, amid the stirless air,
High stretching; like a good man's virtuous thoughts
Forsaking earth for heaven. The cushat stands
Amid the topmost boughs, with azure vest,
And neck aslant, listening the amorous coo
Of her, his mate, who, with maternal wing
Wide-spread, sits brooding on opponent tree.
Why, from the rank grass underneath my feet,
Aside on ruffled pinion dost thou start,
Sweet minstrel of the morn? Behold her nest,
Thatch'd o'er with cunning skill, and there, her young
With sparkling eye, and thin-fledged russet wing;
Younglings of air! probationers of song!
From lurking dangers may ye rest secure,
Secure from prowling weazel, or the tread
Of steed incautious, wandering 'mid the flowers?
Secure beneath the fostering care of her
Who warm'd you into life, and gave you birth;
Till, plumed and strong unto the buoyant air,
Ye spread your equal wings, and to the morn,
Lifting your freckled bosoms, dew-besprent,
Salute with spirit-stirring song, the man
Wayfaring lonely. Hark! the striderous neigh!
There, o'er his dogrose fence, the chestnut foal,
Shaking his silver forelock, proudly stands,—
To snuff the balmy fragrance of the morn:—
Up comes his ebon compeer, and, anon,
Around the field in mimic chase they fly,
Startling the echoes of the woodland gloom.
Farewell, ye placid scenes! amid the land
Ye smile, an inland solitude: the voice
Of peace-destroying man is seldom heard
Amid your landscapes. Beautiful ye raise
Your green embowering groves, and smoothly spread
Your waters, glistening in a silver sheet.
The morning is a season of delight—
The morning is the self-possession'd hour—
'Tis then that feelings, sunk, but unsubdued,
Feelings of purer thoughts, and happier days,
Awake, and, like the sceptred images
Of Banquo's mirror, in succession pass!
And, first of all, and fairest, thou dost pass
In Memory's eye, beloved! though now afar
From those sweet vales, where we have often roam'd
Together. Do thy blue eyes now survey
The brightness of the morn in other scenes?
Other, but haply beautiful as these,
Which now I gaze on; but which, wanting thee,
Want half their charms, for, to thy poet's thought,
More deeply glow'd the heaven, when thy fine eye,
Surveying its grand arch, all kindling glow'd;
The white cloud to thy white brow was a foil;
And, by the soft tints of thy cheek outvied,
The dew-bent wild-rose droop'd despairingly.
Blackwood's Mag.