Читать книгу The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction. Volume 14, No. 391, September 26, 1829 - Various - Страница 4

The sun hath set, but yet I linger still,

Gazing with rapture on the face of night;

And mountain wild, deep vale, and heathy hill,

Lay like a lovely vision, mellow, bright,

Bathed in the glory of the sunset light,

Whose changing hues in flick'ring radiance play,

Faint and yet fainter on the outstretch'd sight,

Until at length they wane and die away,

And all th' horizon round fades into twilight gray.

But, slowly rising up the vaulted sky,

Forth comes the moon, night's joyous, sylvan queen,

With one lone, silent star, attendant by

Her side, all sparkling in its glorious sheen;

And, floating swan-like, stately, and serene,

A few light fleecy clouds, the drapery of heav'n,

Throw their pale shadows o'er this witching scene,

Deep'ning its mystic grandeur—and seem driven

Round these all shapeless piles like Time's wan spectres risen

From out the tombs of ages. All around

Lies hushed and still, save with large, dusky wing

The bird of night makes its ill-omened sound;

Or moor-game, nestling 'neath th' flowery ling

Low chuckle to their mates—or startled, spring

Away on rustling pinions to the sky,

Wheel round and round in many an airy ring,

Then swooping downward to their covert hie,

And, lodged beneath the heath again securely lie.

Ascend yon hoary rock's impending brow,

And on its windy summit take your stand—

Lo! Wilsill's lovely vale extends below,

And long, long heathy moors on either hand

Stretch dark and misty—a bleak tract of land,

Whereon but seldom human footsteps come;

Save when with dog, obedient at command,

And gun, the sportsman quits his city home,

And brushing through the ling in quest of game doth roam.

And lo! in wild confusion scattered round,

Huge, shapeless, naked, massy piles of stone

Rise, proudly towering o'er this barren ground,

Scowling in mutual hate—apart, alone,

Stern, desolate they stand—and seeming thrown

By some dire, dread convulsion of the earth

From her deep, silent caves, and hoary grown

With age and storms that Boreas issues forth

Replete with ire from his wild regions in the north.

How beautiful! yet wildly beautiful,

As group on group comes glim'ring on the eye,

Making the heart, soul, mind, and spirit full

Of holy rapture and sweet imagery;

Till o'er the lip escapes th' unconscious sigh,

And heaves the breast with feeling, too too deep

For words t' express the awful sympathy,

That like a dream doth o'er the senses creep,

Chaining the gazer's eye—and yet he cannot weep.

But stands entranced and rooted to the spot,

While grows the scene upon him vast, sublime,

Like some gigantic city's ruin, not

Inhabited by men, but Titans—Time

Here rests upon his scythe and fears to climb,

Spent by th' unceasing toil of ages past,

Musing he stands and listens to the chime

Of rock-born spirits howling in the blast,

While gloomily around night's sable shades are cast.

Well deemed I ween the Druid sage of old

In making this his dwelling place on high;

Where all that's huge and great from Nature's mould,

Spoke this the temple of his deity;

Whose walls and roof were the o'erhanging sky,

His altar th' unhewn rock, all bleak and bare,

Where superstition with red, phrensied eye

And look all wild, poured forth her idol prayer,

As rose the dying wail,4 and blazed the pile in air.

Lost in the lapse of time, the Druid's lore

Hath ceased to echo these rude rocks among;

No altar new is stained with human gore;

No hoary bard now weaves the mystic song;

Nor thrust in wicker hurdles, throng on throng,

Whole multitudes are offered to appease

Some angry god, whose will and power of wrong

Vainly they thus essayed to soothe and please—

Alas! that thoughts so gross man's noblest powers should seize.

But, bowed beneath the cross, see! prostrate fall

The mummeries that long enthralled our isle;

So perish error! and wide over all

Let reason, truth, religion ever smile:

And let not man, vain, impious man defile

The spark heaven lighted in the human breast;

Let no enthusiastic rage, no sophist's wile

Lull the poor victim into careless rest,

Since the pure gospel page can teach him to be blest.

Weak, trifling man, O! come and ponder here

Upon the nothingness of human things—

How vain, how very vain doth then appear

The city's hum, the pomp and pride of kings;

All that from wealth, power, grandeur, beauty springs,

Alike must fade, die, perish, be forgot;

E'en he whose feeble hand now strikes the strings

Soon, soon within the silent grave must rot—

Yet Nature's still the same, though we see, we hear her not.