This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing

To waft me from distraction: once I loved Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring Sounds sweet, as if a Sister's voice reproved That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.

It is the hush of night, and all between
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen,
Save darkened Jura, whose capped heights appear
Precipitously steep; and drawing near,

There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear
Drops the light dip of the suspended oar,
Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more:

He is an evening reveller, who makes
His life an infancy, and sings his fill.
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes
Starts into voice a moment, then is still.
There seems a floating whisper on the hill,
But that is fancy; for the starlight dews
All silently their tears of love instill,
Weeping themselves away, till they infuse
Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues.

All heaven and earth are still,-though not in sleep,
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:-
All heaven and earth are still: from the high host
Of stars, to the lulled lake and mountain-coast,
All is concentred in a life intense,

Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being, and a sense
Of that which is of all Creator and defence.

BYRON.

THE RAINBOW.

EANTIME, refracted from yon eastern cloud,
Bestriding earth, the grand ethereal bow
Shoots up immense; and every hue unfolds,

In fair proportion, running from the red
To where the violet fades into the sky.
Here, awful Newton! the dissolving clouds
Form, fronting to the Sun, thy showery prism;
And to the sage-instructed eye unfold

The various twine of light, by thee disclosed,
From the white mingling maze.
Not so the boy:

He wondering views the bright enchantment bend
Delightful o'er the radiant fields, and runs
To catch the falling glory; but, amazed,
Beholds the amusive arch before him fly,
Then vanish quite away.

THOMSON.

THE RAINBOW.

RIUMPHAL arch, that fill'st the sky
When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud Philosophy

To teach me what thou art.

Still seem, as to my childhood's sight,

A midway station given, For happy spirits to alight,

Betwixt the earth and heaven.

Can all that Optics teach unfold

Thy form to please me so,
As when I dreamt of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?

When Science from Creation's face

Enchantment's veil withdraws, What lovely visions yield their place To cold material laws!

And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,

Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.

When, o'er the green undeluged earth, Heaven's covenant thou didst shine, How came the world's gray fathers forth, To watch thy sacred sign!

And when its yellow lustre smiled
O'er mountains yet untrod,
Each mother held aloft her child,
To bless the bow of God.

Methinks thy jubilee to keep,
The first-made anthem rang,
On earth delivered from the deep,
And the first poet sang.

Nor ever shall the Muse's eye
Unraptured greet thy beam :
Theme of primeval prophecy,
Be still the poet's theme.

The earth to thee her incense yields,
The lark thy welcome sings,
When, glittering in the freshened fields,
The snowy mushroom springs.

How glorious is thy girdle, cast
O'er mountain, tower, and town!
Or mirrored in the ocean vast,
A thousand fathoms down!

As fresh in yon horizon dark,
As young thy beauties seem,
As when the eagle from the ark
First sported in thy beam.

For faithful to its sacred page,

Heaven still rebuilds thy span,
Nor lets the type grow cold with age
That first spoke peace to man.

CAMPBELL.

THE RAINBOW.

HEN the floods of the Deluge to ocean had rolled,
And the green mantled hills reäppeared;

When the valleys unfolded their blossoms of gold
And Noah, the patriarch, came forth from his hold,
The voice of Jehovah was heard—

The voice of Jehovah brought tidings of bliss
To the world late entombed in the fearful abyss.

"The smoke of thine offering hath come upon high,

Thou father of nations to be!

And now I my Rainbow shall set in the sky,
When tempests are dark to thy terrified eye,
That shall bring consolation to thee—
To thousands of thousands that after thee tread
The regions of life to the realms of the dead.

"It is for a sign that I never again

With waters shall cover the earth;

And the birds in the arbours shall warble their strain,
And the cattle shall browse on the nourishing plain,
And give to their progeny birth;

And die as they died by the curse that I spoke,
When my covenant of old by thy father was broke.

"And thou, Noah, thou art preserved for thy worth,
To repeople the desolate world:

To the climes of the south, to the isles the north,
To the east and the west, shall thy children go forth,
With the white flags of ocean unfurled—

To publish my praises throughout every land,

And the judgments of vengeance that come from my hand.

"And seed-time and harvest shall duly be given

To the hopes and the hands of mankind;

And summer and winter, and morning and even,
And the dew-drops of earth, and the light rays of heaven,
And the cloud, and the rain, and the wind—

While earth in her orbit is destined to run,

And give her green breast to the beams of the sun."

KNOX.

THE EVENING RAINBOW.

ILD arch of promise, on the evening sky

Thou shinest fair with many a lovely ray,

Each in the other melting. Much mine eye

Delights to linger on thee; for the day,

Changeful and many-weathered, seemed to smile,
Flashing brief splendour through the clouds a while,
Which deepened dark anon, and fell in rain:

But pleasant is it now to pause and view
Thy various tints of frail and watery hue,

And think the storm shall not return again.

Such is the smile that Piety bestows

On the good man's pale cheek, when he, in peace, Departing gently from a world of woes,

Anticipates the world where sorrows cease.

SOUTHEY.

A SUMMER CLOUD.

S though an angel, in his upward flight,
Had left his mantle floating in mid air.
JOANNA BAILLIE.