Blackwood's Magazine/Volume 1/Issue 2/A Night Scene

A NIGHT SCENE.

Now flaming no more on the soft-heaving main,
The sun's parting splendour is shed;
Night's dark-rolling shades have enveloped the plain,
And the twilight's faint visions have fled.
No longer in Day's gaudy colouring glows
The landscape, in Nature's diversity gay:
The loud-lowing herds are now lulled to repose,
And hushed are the sounds from the hamlet that rose,
And the music that flowed from the spray.

How solemn the Hour! In their splendid career
The planets revolving are seen;
And the proud towering hills 'neath their glimmering appear
As the shadows of things that have been.
Dread Silence, her empire o'er Nature to prove,
Forbids that a whisper be heard in the vale,
Save the breeze breathing soft through the far-stretching grove,
And the light curling waves in sweet cadence that move
Where the lake's gently kissed by the gale.

From behind yon dark hill, in deep sable arrayed,
The moon soars majestic and slow;
And her mild-beaming rays sweetly pierce thro' the shade
Of the thicket that waves on its brow—
And now her full orb o'er the mountain impending,
Sublime in bright glory she glows in the sky;
A stream of soft light o'er the vallies descending;
On the lake's silver breast trees and cottages blending
With the splendours effulgent on high.

Great Ruler of all! while transported I view
This fabric so glorious and fair,
Oh! teach me, with rapture and reverence due,
To trace benign Deity there—
Serene as yon orbs in thy radiance shine,
And light, life, and joy to creation impart,
So fair from my soul beam thine image divine,
And fervent, diffusive, unchanging like thine,
May benevolence glow in my heart. S.