The Land of Song Volume Iii Part 30

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.

HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR.

The sad and solemn night Hath yet her mult.i.tude of cheerful fires; The glorious host of light Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires; All through her silent watches, gliding slow, Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go.

Day, too, hath many a star To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they: Through the blue fields afar, Unseen, they follow in his flaming way: Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim, Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him.

And thou dost see them rise, Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set.

Alone, in thy cold skies, Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet, Nor join'st the dances of that glittering train, Nor dipp'st thy virgin orb in the blue western main.

There, at morn's rosy birth, Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air, And eve, that round the earth Chases the day, beholds thee watching there; There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven's azure walls.

Alike, beneath thine eye, The deeds of darkness and of light are done; High towards the starlit sky Towns blaze, the smoke of battle blots the sun, The night storm on a thousand hills is loud And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud.

On thy unaltering blaze The half-wrecked mariner, his compa.s.s lost, Fixes his steady gaze, And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast; And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night, Are glad when thou dost s.h.i.+ne to guide their footsteps right.

And, therefore, bards of old, Sages and hermits of the solemn wood, Did in thy beams behold A beauteous type of that unchanging good, That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

EVENING.

Now came still evening on, and twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad: Silence accompanied; for beast and bird, They to their gra.s.sy couch, these to their nests, Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale; She all night long her amorous descant sung; Silence was pleased: now glowed the firmament With living sapphires: Hesperus, that led The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon, Rising in clouded majesty, at length, Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light, And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

JOHN MILTON.

_From "Paradise Lost."_

QUIET WORK.

One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee, One lesson which in every wind is blown, One lesson of two duties kept at one Though the loud world proclaim their enmity-- Of toil unsevered from tranquillity; Of labor, that in lasting fruit outgrows Far noisier schemes, accomplished in repose, Too great for haste, too high for rivalry.

Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring, Man's senseless uproar mingling with his toil, Still do thy quiet ministers move on, Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting; Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil, Laborers that shall not fail, when man is gone.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.]

HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star In his steep course? so long he seems to pause On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc!

The Arve and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form, Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, How silently! Around thee and above, Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, An ebon ma.s.s: methinks thou piercest it, As with a wedge! But when I look again, It is thy own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thoughts: entranced in prayer I wors.h.i.+ped the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet, beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, Thou the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy: Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused, Into the mighty vision pa.s.sing,--there, As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven!

Awake, my soul! not only pa.s.sive praise Thou owest,--not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!

Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn!

Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the vale!

O, struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky or when they sink; Companion of the morning star at dawn, Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn Coherald! O, wake, and utter praise!

Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?

Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?

Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad, Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, Forever shattered and the same forever?

Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?

And who commanded--and the silence came-- "Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?"

Ye ice falls! ye that from the mountain's brow, Adown enormous ravines slope amain, Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!

Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven Beneath the keen, full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?

"G.o.d!" let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer; and let the ice plains echo, "G.o.d!"

"G.o.d!" sing, ye meadow streams with gladsome voice!

Ye pine groves, with your soft and soullike sounds!

And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, "G.o.d!"

Ye living flowers, that skirt the eternal frost!

Ye wild goats, sporting round the eagle's nest!

Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm!

Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!

Ye signs and wonders of the elements!

Utter forth G.o.d, and fill the hills with praise!

Thou, too, h.o.a.r mount, with thy sky-pointing peaks!

Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depths of clouds that veil thy breast, Thou, too, again, stupendous mountain! thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration, upward from thy base Slow traveling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud, To rise before me,--rise, O, ever rise, Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth!

Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills, Thou dread amba.s.sador from earth to heaven, Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, Earth, with her thousand voices praises G.o.d.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONT BLANC. (Vale of Chamouni.)]