A WINTER'S NIGHT.

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. Heaven's ebon vault,

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 walls, whence icicles depend

So stainless, that their white and glittering spears

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.