With rock-wall encircled, with precipice crown'dWhich, awoke by the sun, thou can'st clear at a bound. 'Mid the fern and the heather kind Nature doth keep One bright spot of green for her favourite's sleep; And close to that covert, as clear as the skies When their blue depths are cloudless, a little lake lies, Where the creature at rest can his image behold Looking up through the radiance, as bright and as bold! How lonesome! how wild! yet the wildness is rife With the stir of enjoyment—the spirit of life. The glad fish leaps up in the heart of the lake, Whose depths, at the sullen plunge, sullenly quake! Elate on the fern-branch the grasshopper sings, And away in the midst of his roundelay springs; 'Mid the flowers of the heath, not more bright than himself, The wild-bee is busy, a musical elf— Then starts from his labour, unwearied and gay, As if in his soul the bold Animal smiled To his friends of the sky, the joint-heirs of the wild. Yes! fierce looks thy nature, ev'n hush'd in repose In the depth of thy desert regardless of foes. In the wide-raging torrent that lends thee its roar,— Thy trust-'mid the dangers that threaten thy reign! -But what if the stag on the mountain be slain? On the brink of the rock-lo! he standeth at bay, Like a victor that falls at the close of the dayWhile hunter and hound in their terror retreat From the death that is spurn'd from his furious feet: And his last cry of anger comes back from the skies, As nature's fierce son in the wilderness dies. 'Tis his o'er the mountains to stalk like a ghost, Enshrouded with mist, in which nature is lost, Till he lifts up his eyes, and flood, valley, and height, In one moment all swim in an ocean of light; While the sun, like a glorious banner unfurl'd, Seems to wave o'er a new, more magnificent world. 'Tis his-by the mouth of some cavern his seatThe lightning of heaven to hold at his feet, While the thunder below him that growls from the cloud, To him comes on echo more awfully loud. When the clear depth of noon-tide, with glittering motion, O'erflows the lone glens-an aërial ocean→→→ When the earth and the heavens, in union profound, Lie blended in beauty that knows not a soundAs his eyes in the sunshiny solitude close 'Neath a rock of the desert in dreaming repose, He sees, in his slumbers, such visions of old As his wild Gaelic songs to his infancy told; O'er the mountains a thousand plumed hunters are borne, And he starts from his dream at the blast of the horn. Yes! child of the desert! fit quarry were thou For the hunter that came with a crown on his brow, By princes attended with arrow and spear, And, silently built by a magical spelf, Not lonely and single they pass'd o'er the height- -And onward they came like the sea o'er the sand; Like the snow from the mountain when loosen'd by rain; And rolling along with a crash to the plain; Like a thunder-split oak-tree, that falls in one shock With his hundred wide arms from the top of the rock, Like the voice of the sky, when the black cloud is near, So sudden, so loud, came the tempest of Deer. can survey The clear cloudless morn of that glorious day. And the far-ebbed grandeur rolls back to the shore. I wake from my trance!-lo! the Sun is declin ing! And the Black-mount afar in his lustre is shining. -One soft golden gleam ere the twilight prevail ! Then down let me sink to the cot in the dale, Where sings the fair maid to the viol so sweet, Or the floor is alive with her white twinkling feet, Down, down like a bird to the depth of the dell ! -Vanish'd Creature! I bid thy fair image farewell! THOMAS MOORE. SONG. THERE's a bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream, And the nightingale sings round it all the day long; In the time of my childhood 'twas like a sweet dream To sit in the roses and hear the bird's song. That bower and its music I never forget; But oft when alone in the bloom of the year, I think is the nightingale singing there yet? Are the roses still bright by the calm Bendemeer ? No; the roses are withered that hung o'er the wave, But some blossoms were gathered while freshly they shone ; |