XIX.

THE SAME.

By Grief and melancholy thoughts depress'd,

I

come to breathe the midnight air: the Moon Is riding glorious at her highest noon;

And such a sky encircles her chaste crest,
As, with her soft beams, should to every breast
Waft happy thoughts-but mine are out of tune.
O lovely Planet, grant me but the boon

Of meek content like thine,-and I am bless'd.
I've gazed upon thee in another clime,-

My native country, colder, yet more kind
Than this strange land: but in the round of time
I never felt more need of thy dear light

To chase away my sorrow, and unwind

The thread of my dark thoughts on this fair night.

XX.

ASCEND this wooded hill, and cast thine eye ef
Around thee; for the scene on every side,➡
The valley and the ocean, far and wide

As eye can reach,-is glorious. Vineyards lies 10
Laughing beneath a clear, unclouded sky," don 7/
That bends its blue arch o'er yon classic tide bonf
With fondness of a lover for his bride; ni'Į
While the glad wave reflects the heaven from high,
And shows its concave in the depth below:
Of the translucent waters. Rocky isles,

די

Gemming the ocean, their broad shadows throw!! A

Into the mirror of the sea, which smiles
At the vain effort to disturb a scene

So exquisitely beauteous and serene.

-117702

XXL

THE OAK TREE".

As the familiar accents of our tongue,
Heard in a foreign land with pleased surprise,
Unlock the floodgates of our sympathies;

Or as in dreams o'er shadowy forms we've hung,
Which in our wakeful hours once fondly clung 1
Around our hearts; thus under southern skies
This splendid Oak Tree brings before my eyes.
Scenes whence my first, my best affections sprung.
Its outspread branches form a friendly shade
To shield me from an almost Syrian sun;
And as beneath these noble boughs I'm laid,
Around the trunk my boyish feet now run,
And now in far off woods I slowly tread—
An idle dreamer till life's day is done.

XXII.

THE PINE GROVE.

THERE is a dark and melancholy grove
Of pines that moan as softly to the breeze
As the responsive murmur of the seas→
A solemn spectral sound *, as of the love
Of spirits of another world, or as the dove
Coos pensively amid the leafy trees

Of England's ancient forests. With what ease
These lofty pines their flexile branches move,
And bend before the balmy air that blows
Upon them with the sea's refreshing breath!
This
grove leads to a spot which one well knows
And loves; the gloom, the stillness even of death'
Abides for ever in this solitude

Of rocky glens and mountains wild and rude.

* Ye Pine Groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds.

COLERIDGE.

XXIII.

Ask why such solitudes delight the soul?
Who love them most profoundly scarce know why
The lonely woods, the streamlet murmuring nigh,
The mountain torrent, and the thunder's roll,
The sea in calm or storm,-the mighty whole
Of nature's wonders of the ear and eye,—
Transport from earth our dull mortality,
And hurl our grosser feelings off the shoal
of utter worldliness. But they, who tread
The fields with this instinctive pleasure, know
Nor hours of weariness, nor sense of woe;
The woods and waters, nay, each single blade
Of
and dewy grass, and every flower,
O'er thoughtful bosoms claim mysterious power *.

green

*To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

WORDSWORTH.