Against thine own to swell!
THE CROSS OF THE SOUTH.
[The beautiful constellation of the Cross is seen only in the southern hemisphere. The following lines are supposed to be addressed to it by a Spanish traveller in South America.]
In the silence and grandeur of midnight I tread,
Where savannahs in boundless magnificence spread,
And bearing sublimely their snow-wreaths on high,
The far Cordilleras unite with the sky.
The fir-tree waves o’er me, the fire-flies’ red light
With its quick-glancing splendour illumines the night;
And I read in each tint of the skies and the earth,