Like the dark curls, with roses crown'd, which play
Around the brow of some fair queen of May;
And dusky streaks on which the sunbeams throw
A lurid mellowness, a sullen glow,
Whose inky masses seem to fancy's sight,
Blue hilly isles, amidst a sea of light,
Ragged with many a crag's fantastic shape.
And swelling ridge, and far-projecting cape-
Dyed by the sinking rays the heavens assume
A brilliant tint of deep and rosy bloom,
The lovely hectic of declining day,
Height'ning its charms, and marking its decay:
From hue to hue the varying splendours fade
And melts into a pale and saffron shade.
At length the cottage windows cease to blaze,
And a soft veil of dim and silver haze
Floats o'er the watery meadows. All is still,
Save the faint tinkling of the pebbled rill,
Or beetle's drowsy hum, or bat's shrill wail,
Or thrilling chaunt of love-lorn nightingale.
The stream hath darkened to a purple hue,
The turf is fresh with cool and fragrant dew-
Who loves not then with upward gazing eye,
To pore into the wide abyss of sky
So still, so vast, so colourless, so pure,
Clear without light, and without gloom obscure;
And here and there to catch some lonely star
Twinkling in humid lustre from afar;
Or flashing in the West fair Eve to see
The planet dear to Venus and to Thee.
Oh! thou whose myrtle grove and od'rous shrine,
An earlier age adorned with rites divine,
When infant genius tuned the Grecian lyre,
To hail the Queen of beauty and desire;
Oh! nurse of softest hopes and fondest fears,
Of melancholy smiles and rapt'rous tears,
Thou phantom, which some rich voluptuous mind,
From all its wealth of glowing thoughts combined,
Thou sweet embodied wish, thou loveliest dream,
That e'er in moonlight sleep by lilied stream,
Bright with all men's eyes and all fancy's dyes,
Floated before enamoured Poet's eyes;
How justly ancient lore assign'd thy name,
To yon fair emblem of thy mystic flame,
Love's consecrated lamp, which lights from high,
The vespers of his fond idolatry!
How oft, fair star, have bards been wont to twine,
In flowery raptures, beauty's praise with thine,
And loveliest eyes gazed fondly on a ray,
As bright, as dewy, and as soft as they!
But see the broad and yellow Moon emerge
Upon the dim horizon's eastern verge,
In cold and ghastly beauty. Tree and height
River and plain are starting into light;
How beautiful its gleams of silver fall
On the bright lattice, and the flower-clad wall
Of snowy cottage, or the Gothic tower
Of some grey church which tufted yews embower!
How fair is yon meek wand'rer, as she strays
Through filmy shades which scarce conceal her blaze,
Or measure with her cold and pensive eye,
From some clear island of cærulean sky,
The billowy ocean of pale clouds around,
O'er which her lone and nightly course is bound!
What marvel then if man, while heaven denied
A hope to cheer him, and a law to guide,
Thou pure and radiant orb adored in thee
The source of radiance and purity?
Oft when along the sweet Campanian bay
The latest flash of sunset died away,
The Italian maid with reverence saw thee shine,
Silvering the purple peaks of Apennine,
And kneeling on the fragrant turf were played
In quivering fretwork, chequered light and shade,
Beneath some vine-clad elm's fantastic boughs.
Poured forth to thee her blessings and her vows.
No longer from thy hundred altars rise
The voice of prayer, the smoke of sacrifice,
Citharon owns no more her Cynthia's reign,
And Jackals howl about the Ephesian fane.
Yet contemplation still delights to gaze
On the wan lustre of thy frozen rays,
And pay at thy serene and solemn hour,
A juster tribute to a higher power.
Less gay is Evening when December's breeze
Sweeps through the roaring forest's leafless trees
In busy cadence; when th' undazzled eye,
Beholds, athwart the grey and frosty sky,
Stripp'd of his glittering robes and golden crown,
The blood-red sun without a ray sink down.
Yet then 'tis sweet to stray in pensive mood
Through the dim twilight of the naked wood.
Where groaning branches yield a powerful sound,
And wither'd leaves in eddies flit around.
'Tis sweet to seek the flickering light and gloom
Of the neat fireside and the curtain'd room.
"Tis sweet to listen to the driving rain,
The bellowing chimney and the rattling pane;
And sweet it is, at every gust, to raise
The glowing embers to a brighter blaze,
And mark their quivering lustre glance the while
On eyes that sparkle and on cheeks that smile;
On furrowed brows which now forget to lower,
Charmed by the sorcery of that tranquil hour,
And rosy infant lips which fondly press
To snatch the willing yet delayed caress.
Alas! no more with England's ancient rites
Blithe Christmas lends along the wintry night.
As when of old his purple visage bluff,
And pointed cap, and rustling length of ruff,
Come forth with minstrel's song and jester's tale,
And boar's head garland, and amber ale,
And masquers + decked with bugle horn and bow,
And hissing crabs and amorous mistletoe;
While the bright hearth, in joyous current, roar'd
With blazing logs; and o'er the groaning board
Of glossy oak the prickly holly spread
Its varnished foliage and its berries red.
Yet joys, perchance as sweet, remain to cheer
The sullen evenings of the closing year:
The fireside circle at the close of day,
The licensed schoolboy's Saturnalian sway:
The listed combat of the warrior train
In order marshalled on the chequered plain,
When these in sable, those in argent mail,
The chief, the hostile chief alone assail.
To guard their king with brave devotion fly
His serried foot and bounding chivalry:
This costume of Christmas is taken from the masque in which Ben Jonson has personified the festival.
Robin Hood and his followers were principal characters in the old masquerades of Christmas.
"When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl."-Shakespeare.
His mitred prelates burn with martial zeal;
His princess grasps her Amazonian steel.—
Hard is his heart who views with cynic eyes
Those bloodless fights, those tearless victories:
But his far harder, who can coldly turn
From the sweet rites of that enchanted urn,
Whence some terrestrial Hebe deals around
The social cups with fragrant nectar crown'd.
Thine, gentle Evening, is each power that binds,
In mystic harmony, united minds,
And lulls to soft repose in verdant bowers,
Amidst a glowing paradise of flowers,
Of sparkling streams and spicy gales of bliss,
The way-worn pilgrims of a world like this.
Thine is the tenderness whose blameless joys
No guilt pollutes, and no remorse alloys,
The rest which soothes the tortur'd spirit's strife,
The fairy graces of domestic life.
Thine is the prayer lisp'd forth, with downcast eyes
And lifted eyes, by kneeling infancy,
And thoughts of solemn awe and grateful love
Which link mortality to realms above.
Nor less, enchantress, to thy reign belong
The mines of science and the flowers of song,
And every glorious deed and thought sublime,
By virtue, or by genius, snatch'd from time.
I love to trim the taper o'er the page
Where lives the mind of poet or of sage.
Then, as that beauteous and imperial Fay*
Renown'd in many a wild Ausonian lay,
Crowds with fair shapes, and paints with glorious dyes
The sparkling azure of Sicilian skies,
And hangs her pillar'd domes and waving shades,
Her terraced streets and marble colonnades,
O'er the bright waters of that sapphire sea
Which laves thy sunny realms, Parthenope;
So o'er the soul the muse's spells diffuse
The pomp of graceful forms and lovely hues:
Things uncreated, men unborn appear;
The past is present, and the distant near.
In long array on Fancy's wond'ring eyes
Visions of beauty or of terror rise,
mantling with the drugs of hell,
The suppliant charms of purest † Isabel,
Or that dire huntsman whom with shudd'ring awe
The love-sick wand'rer of Ravenna saw.
Now, led by Milton's mighty hand, she roves
Through the dark verdure of primeval groves,
By streams that from their crystal bosoms fling
The gay profusion of unfading spring:
O'er beds of flowers, more frail, more frail than they,
She views a form of peerless beauty stray,
Tend the gay fragrance of the nuptial shade,
And twine her locks with many a dewy braid.
The rose-crowned § priest of love and wine she sees
Lead his quaint pageant through the moonlight trees.
She roams through proud Duessa's gilded hall,||
She melts in anguish o'er Clarissa's pall.
The fabled East pours forth its witching dreams,
Sweet as its gales, and gorgeous as its beams.
The Gothic muse recounts in Northern rhyme
The sterner legends of a sterner clime,
Her tales of trophied lists and rescued maids,
Of haunted fountains and enchanted blades.
To graver themes shall wit and mirth succeed,
And urge the lingering hours to fleeter speed:
Again Parolles shall seek his luckless drum,
And Falstaff jest, and Epicene ¶ be dumb,
The city's ** champion wield his flaming mace,
And dear Sir Roger lead the joyous chace.
Come ever thus, sweet eve, and let thy smile
The sorrow and the toils of day beguile:
And as thy starlight dew and cooling breeze
Revive the swarthy turf and drooping trees,
Paint every sun-burnt flower with richer bloom,
And bathe the plains in moisture and perfume;
Thus let thy mortal charms, with influence kind,
Repair the wither'd verdure of the mind:
And thus to fresh life and brighter hue,
Each languid hope, and faded joy renew.
See "Macbeth."
† See "Measure for Measure."
See "Theodore and Honoria."
Spenser's "Fairy Queen," Book i., Canto iv.
See Ben Jonson's "Silent Woman."
** See Fletcher's "Knight of the Burning Pestle."
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