"O night, And storm, and darkness! ye are wondrous strong, I COME to thee, O Earth! BYRON. With all my gifts!—for every flower sweet dew Not one which glimmering lies Far amidst folding hills, or forest leaves, I come with every star; Making thy streams, that on their noon-day track, I come with peace:—I shed Sleep through thy wood-walks, o'er the honey-bee, The lark's triumphant voice, the fawn's young glee, The hyacinth's meek head. On my own heart I lay The weary babe; and sealing with a breath Its eyes of love, send fairy dreams, beneath The shadowing lids to play. * Suggested by Thorwaldsen's bas-relief of Night, represented under the form of a winged female figure, with two infants asleep in her arms. THE SONG OF NIGHT. I come with mightier things! Who calls me silent? I have many tones- I waft them not alone From the deep organ of the forest shades, But in the human breast A thousand still small voices I awake, I bring them from the past: 95 From true hearts broken, gentle spirits torn, From crush'd affections, which, though long o'erborne, Make their tones heard at last. I bring them from the tomb: O'er the sad couch of late repentant love I come with all my train ; Who calls me lonely ?-Hosts around me tread, Looks from departed eyes These are my lightnings !-fill'd with anguish vain, I, that with soft control, Shut the dim violet, hush the woodland song, I, that shower dewy light Through slumbering leaves, bring storms!-the tempest-birth Of memory, thought, remorse :—Be holy, Earth! I am the solemn Night! THE STORM-PAINTER IN HIS DUNGEON.* "Where of ye, O tempests, is the goal? Are ye like those that shake the human breast? Or do ye find at length, like eagles, some high nest?" MIDNIGHT, and silence deep! -The air is fill'd with sleep, Childe Harold. * Pietro Mulier, called Il Tempesta, from his surprising pictures of storms. "His compositions," says Lanzi, “inspire a real horror, presenting to our eyes death-devoted ships overtaken by tempests and darkness-fired by lightning-now rising on the mountain-wave, and again submerged in the abyss of ocean." During an imprisonment of five years in Genoa, the pictures which he painted in his dungeon were marked by additional power and gloom.—See LANZI'S History of Painting, translated by Roscoe. THE STORM-PAINTER IN HIS DUNGEON. 97 With the stream's whisper, and the citron's breath; The fix'd and solemn stars Gleam through my dungeon bars Wake, rushing winds! this breezeless calm is death! Ye watch-fires of the skies! The stillness of your eyes Looks too intensely through my troubled soul; An earth-load on my breast Wake, rushing winds, awake! and, dark clouds, roll! And kingly tempests !—will ye not arise? Hear the bold spirit's voice, That knows not to rejoice But in the peal of your strong harmonies. By sounding ocean-waves, And dim Calabrian caves, And flashing torrents, I have been In And with the rocking pines Of the olden Apennines, your dark path stood fearless and elate: Your lightnings were as rods, That smote the deep abodes Of thought and vision-and the stream gush'd free; Come, that my soul again May swell to burst its chain Bring me the music of the sweeping sea! Within me dwells a flame, An eagle caged and tame, Till call'd forth by the harping of the blast; It springs to sudden power, As mounts the billow o'er the quivering mast. Then, then, the canvass o'er, The lava-waves and gusts of my own soul! Dreams, worlds, of pictured strife- Wake, rise! the reed may bend, The shivering leaf descend, The forest branch give way before your might; Call, summon, wait you here- THE TWO VOICES. Two solemn Voices, in a funeral strain, + Met as rich sunbeams and dark bursts of rain Meet in the sky: "Thou art gone hence!" one sang; " Our light is flown, Our beautiful, that seem'd too much our own Ever to die! |