JAMES MONTGOMERY: 1771-1854. Montgomery, the most popular writer of religious poetry in the period, was the son of a Moravian missionary. He was born at Irvine in Ayrshire, and was educated at the Moravian school at Fulneck, Leeds. In 1791 he became a clerk in a newspaper office in Sheffield, and shortly afterwards, with the aid of friends, he established the Sheffield Iris, a weekly journal, which he conducted with marked ability up to 1825. Montgomery's larger poems are The Wanderer of Switzerland, The West Indies, The World before the Flood, Greenland, and The Pelican Island. NIGHT. Night is the time for rest; How sweet, when labours close, To gather round an aching breast Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head Upon our own delightful bed! Night is the time for dreams; The gay romance of life, When truth that is and truth that seems, Blend in fantastic strife; Ah! visions less beguiling far Than waking dreams by daylight are! Night is the time for toil; To plough the classic field, Its wealthy furrows yield; Night is the time to weep; To wet with unseen tears Those graves of memory where sleep The joys of other years; Hopes that were angels in their birth, But perished young like things on earth! Night is the time to watch; On ocean's dark expanse To hail the Pleiades, or catch The full moon's earliest glance, That brings unto the home-sick mind All we have loved and left behind. Night is the time for care; Brooding on hours misspent, To see the spectre of despair Come to our lonely tent; Like Brutus, 'midst his slumbering host, Startled by Cæsar's stalwart ghost. Night is the time to muse; Then from the eye the soul Takes flight, and with expanding views Beyond the starry pole, Descries athwart the abyss of night The dawn of uncreated light. Night is the time to pray; Our Saviour oft withdrew To desert mountains far away; So will his followers do; Steal from the throng to haunts untrod, And hold communion there with God. Night is the time for death; When all around is peace, Calmly to yield the weary breath, From sin and suffering cease: Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign To parting friends-such death be mine! THE ICE BLINK. From Greenland. Amidst black rocks, that lift on either hand That shine around the Arctic Cyclades ; On which the sun, beyond the horizon shrined, A monument; where every flake that falls From age to age, in air, o'er sea, on land, JOHN WILSON: 1785-1854. John Wilson, for many years Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, was a native of Paisley. His poetical works consist of The Isle of Palms, The City of the Plague, and several smaller pieces. (For a specimen of Wilson's prose, see Readings in English Prose, p. 190.) FROM THE ISLE OF PALMS. Like fire, strange flowers around them flame, Too wildly beautiful to bear a name. And when the Ocean sends a breeze, To wake the music sleeping in the trees, Trees scarce they seem to be; for many a flower, Radiant as dew, or ruby polished bright, Glances on every spray, that bending light And towering o'er these beauteous woods, Breaking with solemn gray the tremulous green, How calm and placidly they rest Upon the Heaven's indulgent breast, As if their branches never breeze had known! And Silence mid their lofty bowers Sits on her moveless throne. . . . . All things are here Delightful to the eye and ear, And fragrance pure as light floats all around. But if they look-those mystic gleams, There dwells, with shadowy glories crowned, The Spirit of the Wilderness. Lo! stretching inward on the right, A winding vale eludes the sight, But where it dies the happy soul must dream: Oh! never sure beneath the sun, Along such lovely banks did run So musical a stream. But who shall dare in thought to paint Yon fairy water-fall? Still moistened by the misty showers, From fiery-red, to yellow soft and faint, Sport o'er the rocky wall; And ever, through the shrouding spray, Whose diamonds glance as bright as they, Float birds of graceful form, and gorgeous plumes, Or dazzling white as snow; While, as the passing sun illumes The river's bed, in silent pride But turn around, if thou hast power And looking left-wards from the bower, For lo! the heaven-encircled Sea Outspreads his dazzling pageantry, As if the whole creation were his own, And the Isle, on which thy feet now stand, And for his joy alone. |