Classic Poem

O Evening! thou art lovely: — in thy dress
Of sober gray I woo thee, when thy star
Comes o'er the hazy hills, that rise afar,
When tender thoughts upon my spirit press,
And with the whispering gales and fanning airs
The quiet swelling of my bosom pairs;
And by the lake that lieth motionless,
Low in the secret hollow, where the shade,
By bending elms and drooping willows made,
Displays its peaceful canopy, and gives
A moving picture to the lymph below,
Where float the sapphire sky, the clouds of snow,
The evening streaks, and every swarm that lives
And murmurs in the dun air, and the leaves
That quiver in the breath of night, and shine
With slowly gathered drops, and boughs that play,
Rising and falling gently, he who grieves
For some deep-wounding sorrow, as is mine,
In such a lonely shade his head may lay,
And on the scented grass and flowers recline,
And gaze upon the lingering light of day.
Empress of night! I saw thee through the rack,
That fleeced the face of heaven, careering by,
And launch again upon a cloudless sky,
A beam of glory setting in thy track;
Like vessel in her course along the sea,
Now voyaging through islands, now away
On the wide ocean, in her liberty
Rejoicing; or like falcon on her wing
Skirting the mountain shadows, as they fling
Gloom o'er the world beneath them, now at play,
On broad, exulting pinions, in the clear
Blue noon-vault, where nor speck nor mist appear,
And bathing in the deepest flood of day; —
So seemed thy round, full orb to hold its flight,
Ascending proudly to its highest throne,
Mellowing the dun obscurity of night,
And walking in its majesty alone;
Now through its waving veil of white clouds beaming
With softer light, now pouring on their snow,
Floating like heaps of foam, an iris glow;
Now from a narrow rift in glory streaming
With columned rays, as when through arches shine
Thy beams on some looped wall or, broken shrine,
That prouder swell in thy uncertain gleaming;
And now undimmed, unshrouded, on the high
O'erbending vault of sapphire, as an eye
Soothing the brow of heaven, it pours abroad
Brightness o'er vale and mountain, gilds the rock,
Silvers the winding river, tips the wave
With flowing amber, where its foam-wreaths lave
The ocean's bulwark, seeming to unlock
The pure and calm benignity of G OD .
S TAR of the dewy morning! from thy sphere
Of light and purity, before the hue
Of dawn has tinged thy lofty throne of blue,
Before the purple, gold, and crimson stain
The soft transparence of that heavenly plain,
Before the warbling birds salute the ear,
While yet the hills are dark, before the glow
Irradiates yon aerial peak of snow,
And paints the floating clouds, and dyes their veil,
That with the wind swells, like the ruby sail
Of Nautilus, who skims along the deep,
Ere yet the mustering winds the mirror sweep; —
Star of the dewy morning! by thy ray
I love to brush the pearls that gem the lawn,
The while I hasten, ere the bars are drawn
That close the portals of approaching day,
From yonder hill to view the smiling dawn
Shine on the living landscape's proud array;
And while those flashes from the orient play,
Thou sparklest now intensely, now thy beam
Scatters a feebler radiance on the stream,
And as the sun's bright herald gayly flushes,
And from the deep-stained windows of the morn
The rosy nymph of light and darkness born
In all the glow of youth and beauty blushes,
Thy faint and fainter twinkling dies away:
So, when through life's chill night we journey on,
Following the star-like beacon in the skies,
Till, as the long and weary way is done,
At once the doors of heaven before us rise,
A wave of glory from the Eternal Sun,
The beaming welcome of the Holy One,
Mingles with Love's angelic harmonies.
Bow of the fabled huntress! who on high,
Throned in the bright meridian, bend'st thy arch
Towards Day's beaming chariot on its march
Of triumph o'er this pure autumnal sky,
Which, mantled in a soft cerulean dye,
Encircles Nature with its crystal dome,
And, like the matchless Pantheon of Rome,
Shows in its perfect sphere one only eye; —
I mark thy silver crescent purely white
Inlaying yon sublimest azure, where,
Clear and transparent as the viewless air,
And like the empyrean pavement bright and fair,
Expands the softest tinctured arch of light.
Faintly amid this canopy of blue
Thy maiden brightness sweetly trembles through
The golden glories of the orb of day; —
But soon thy sparkling circlet in the west,
Then following, as thou now lead'st on the way,
Shall glitter on the ocean's glassy breast,
And on the mountain's mellow summit play,
And, with the star of beauty by thy side,
Behind yon waving ridge of cedars glide
Serenely to the palace of thy rest.