The light-ships of the sky
Sailing onward silently.
One bird, the lark, was singing his evening song among the cool grass; softly, sweetly, it died away, and all was silent deep tranquillity; a pleasing coolness came on the faint breeze over the neighbouring fields, pregnant with odours, refreshing as they were fragrant. It was twilight; the green of the distant hills changed to a greyish hue, their outlines were enlarged, the trees assumed a more gigantic appearance, and soft dews began to ascend; faint upshootings of light in the eastern horizon foretold the rising of the moon; she appeared at length above the clouds, and a deeper stillness seemed to come with her, as if nature, like man at the presence of a lovely women, was hushed into silent admiration; the grey clouds rolled away on each side of her as rolls the white foam of the ocean before the bows of the vessel; her course was begun, and,
“Silently beautiful, and calmly bright
Along her azure path I saw her glide
Heedless of all those things that neath her light
In bliss or woe or pain or care abide.
Wealth, poverty, humility, and pride,
All are esteemed as nothing in her sight,
Nor make her for one moment turn aside.
So calm philosophy unmoved pursues
Throughout the busy world its quiet way;
Nor aught that folly wiles or glory woos,
Can tempt awhile its notice or its stay:
Above all earthly thoughts its way it goes
And sinks at length in undisturbed repose.”
Coldly and calmly the full orb glided through the stillness of heaven. My thoughts were of the past, of the millions who had worshipped her, of the many she had inspired—of Endymion, of the beautiful episode of Nisus and Euryalus in Virgil, of Diana of the Ephesians, of the beautiful descriptions of her by the poets of every age, of every clime. The melancholy yet pleasing feeling which came on me I can hardly describe: my disquietude had ceased; an undisturbed calmness succeeded it; my thoughts were weaned from the grosser materiality of earth, and were soaring upward in silent adoration. I felt the presence of a divinity, and was for a moment happy. Ye who are careworn, whose minds are restless, go at the peaceful hour of eve to the green fields and the hedge-clothed lanes. If you are not poets, you will feel as poets; if you doubt, you will be convinced of Supreme Power and Infinite Love; and be better in head and heart for your journey.
S. R. J.
SONG.
BY SAMUEL DANIEL, 1590.
Love is a sickness full of woes,
All remedies refusing;
A plant that most with cutting grows,
Most barren with best using.
Why so?
More we enjoy it, more it dies,
If not enjoyed it sighing cries
Heigh ho!
Love is a torment of the mind,
A tempest everlasting;
And Jove hath made it of a kind
Not well, nor full, nor fasting.
Why so?
More we enjoy it, more it dies,
If not enjoyed it sighing cries
Heigh ho![299]