And now the Moon, bursting her watery prison,
Heaves her full orb into the azure clear,
Pale witness, from the slumbering sea new-risen,
To glorify the landscape far and near,
All beauteous things more beautiful appear;
The sky-crown'd summit of the mountain gleams
(Smote by the star-point of her glittering spear)
More steadfastly, and all the valley seems
Strown with a softer light, the atmosphere of dreams.
How still! as though Silence herself were dead,
And her wan ghost were floating in the air;
The Moon glides o'er the heaven with printless tread,
And to her far-off frontier doth repair;
O'er-wearied lids are closing everywhere ;-
All living things that own the touch of sleep,
Are beckon'd, as the wasting moments wear,
Till, one by one, in valley, or from steep,
Unto their several homes they, and their shadows,
AFTER MANY YEARS
The song that once I dream'd about,
The tender, touching thing,
As radiant as the rose without-
The love of wind and wing;
The perfect verses to the tune
Of woodland music set,
As beautiful as afternoon,
Remain unwritten yet.
It is too late to write them now-
The ancient fire is cold;
No ardent lights illume the brow,
As in the days of old.
I cannot dream the dream again ;
But, when the happy birds
Are singing in the sunny rain,
I think I hear its words.
I think I hear the echo still
Of long forgotten tones,
When evening winds are on the hills,
And sunset fires the cones.
But only in the hours supreme,
With songs of land and sea,
The lyrics of the leaf and stream,
This echo comes to me.
No longer doth the earth reveal
Her gracious green and gold;
I sit where youth was once, and feel
That I am growing old.
The lustre from the face of things
Is wearing all away;
Like one who halts with tired wings,
I rest and muse to-day.
There is a river in the range
I love to think about;
Perhaps the searching feet of change
Have never found it out.
Ah! oftentimes I used to look
Upon its banks, and long
To steal the beauty of that brook
And put it in a song.
I wonder if the slopes of moss,
In dreams so dear to me
The falls of flower and flower-like floss
Are as they used to be!
I wonder if the waterfalls,
The singers far and fair,
That gleam❜d between the wet, green walls,
Are still the marvels there!
Ah! let me hope that in that place
The old familiar things
To which I turn a wistful face
Have never taken wings.
Let me retain the fancy still,
That, past the lordly range,
There always shines, in folds of hill,
One spot secure from change!
I trust that yet the tender screen
That shades a certain nook
Remains, with all its gold and green,
The glory of the brook.
It hides a secret to the birds
And waters only known-
The letters of two lovely words—
A poem on a stone.
Perhaps the lady of the past,
Upon these lines may light,
The purest verses and the last
That I may ever write.
She need not fear a word of blame;
Her tale the flowers keep ;
The wind that heard me breathe her name
Has been for years asleep.
But in the night, and when the rain
The troubled torrents fills,
I often think I see again
The river in the hills:
And when the day is very near,
And birds are on the wing,
My spirit fancies it can hear
The song I cannot sing.
THE GIRT WOLD HOUSE O' MOSSY
STWONE
Don't talk ov housen all o' brick,
Wi' rockèn walls nine inches thick,
A-trigg'd together zide by zide
In streets, wi' fronts a straddle wide,
Wi' yards a-sprinkled wi' a mop,
Too little vor a vrog to hop;
But let me live an' die where I
Can zee the ground, an' trees, an' sky.
The girt wold house o' mossy stwone
Had wings vor either sheäde or zun:
An' there the timber'd copse rose high,
Where birds did build an' heäres did lie,
An' beds o' greygles in the lew,
Did deck in May the ground wi' blue.
An' there by leänes a-windèn deep,
Wer mossy banks a-risèn steep;
An' stwonèn steps, so smooth an' wide,
To stiles an' vootpaths at the zide.
An' there, so big's a little ground,
The geärden wer a-wall'd all round :
An' up upon the wall wer bars
A-sheäped all out in wheels an' stars,
Vor vo'k to walk, an' look out drough
Vrom trees o' green to hills o' blue.
An' there wer walks o' peävement, broad
Enough to meäke a carriage-road,
Where steätely leädies woonce did use
To walk wi' hoops an' high-heel shoes,
When yonder hollow woak wer sound,
Avore the walls wer ivy-bound,
Avore the elems met above
The road between em, where they drove
Their coach all up or down the road
A-comèn hwome or gwaïn abroad.
The zummer aïr o' theäse green hill
'V a-heav'd in bosoms now all still,
An' all their hopes an' all their tears
Be unknown things ov other years.
Is this the ground where generations lie
Mourn'd by the drooping birch and dewy fern,
And by the faithful, alder-shaded burn,
Which seems to breathe an everlasting sigh?
No sign of habitation meets the eye;
Only some ancient furrows I discern,
And verdant mounds, and from them sadly learn That hereabout men used to live and die.
Once the blue vapour of the smouldering peat
From half a hundred homes would curl on high,
While round the doors rang children's voices sweet;
Where now the timid deer goes wandering by,
Or a lost lamb sends forth a plaintive bleat,
And the lone glen looks up to the lone sky.
R. Wilton
RETURN TO NATURE
On the braes around Glenfinnan
Fast the human homes are thinning,
And the wilderness is winning
To itself these graves again.
Names or dates here no man knoweth,
O'er gray headstones heather groweth,
Up Loch-Shiel the sea-wind blow th
Over sleep of nameless men.
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