This earth, so blind and base,

What is it but a point, a point how mean
To yon vast field of space,

Where brighter may be seen,

All that will be, and is, and e'er hath been.

The harmony divine

Of yon eternal splendours, who can see
As far above they shine,

With motion just, though free,

How still they vary, and yet still agree !

How rolls o'er azure plains

The moon her silver wheel, and with her move The light whence wisdom rains,

And, others all above,

The brightest Star of Heaven, the Star of Love!
How the fierce God of War

Rolls red and angry on his separate way,
While Jove's imperial star,

With more benignant sway,
Serenes the heaven with his placid ray!

How on the summit high

Wheels Saturn, father of the age of gold ;
With him across the sky

Their track whole myriads hold,
Their glory and their treasure to unfold !

Who, who can lift his eye

To these, and still the sordid earth hold dear,

And not with ardour sigh

To break what holds us here,

Soul-prisoned, banished from that happy sphere?

There dwells Contentment sweet,

There reigns ambrosial Peace-eternal crown'd, On rich and lofty seat;

There sacred Love is found,

With Glory and Delight encircled round.

There boundless Beauty shews

Her perfect pride; there shines unspotted light,

That still unwearied glows,

That never sinks to night;

There Spring eternal ever meets the sight.

Oh meads more blest than earth!

Pastures of true refreshment, ne'er to cease!

Oh mines of richest worth!

Oh fields of sweet increase!

Oh dear retiring vales of pure

celestial Peace!

T. W.

PEACE AND WAR.

How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh
Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening ear,
Were discord to the speaking quietude

That wraps the moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault,
Studded with stars unutterably bright,

Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls,
Seems like a canopy which Love had spread
To curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills,
Robed in a garment of untrodcen snow;
Yon darksome rocks, whence icicles depend,
So stainless, that their white and glittering spires
Tinge not the moon's pure beam, yon castled steep,
Whose banner hangeth o'er the time-worn tower
So idly, that rapt fancy deemeth it

A metaphor of peace-all form a scene
Where musing solitude might love to lift
Her soul above this sphere of earthliness;
Where silence undisturb'd might watch alone,
So cold, so bright, so still.

Ah! whence that glare

That fires the arch of heaven ?-That dark red smoke
Blotting the silver moon? The stars are quench'd
In darkness, and the pure and spangling snow
Gleams faintly through the gloom that gathers round!
Hark to that roar, whose swift and deafening peals
In countless echoes through the mountains ring,
Startling pale midnight on her starry throne!
Now swells the intermingling din; the jar,
Frequent and frightful, of the bursting bomb;
The falling beam, the shriek, the groan, the shout,

The ceaseless clangour, and the rush of men
Inebriate with rage:-loud, and more loud
The discord grows; till pale death shuts the scene,
And o'er the conqueror and the conquered draws
His cold and bloody shroud.- -Of all the men
Whom day's departing beam saw blooming there,
In proud and vigorous health; of all the hearts
That beat with anxious life at sunset there;
How few survive, how few are beating now!
All is deep silence, like the fearful calm
That slumbers in the storm's portentous pause;
Save where the frantic wail of widow'd love

Comes shuddering on the blast; or the faint moan,
With which some soul bursts from the frame of clay
Wrapt round its struggling powers.

The grey morn

Dawns on the mournful scene; the sulphurous smoke Before the icy wind slow rolls away,

And the bright beams of frosty morning dance

Along the spangling snow.

There tracks of blood

Even to the forest's depth, and scatter'd arms,

And lifeless warriors, whose hard lineaments

Death's self could change not, mark the dreadful path

Of the outsallying victors: far behind,

Black ashes note where their proud city stood.

Within yon forest is a gloomy glen

Each tree which guards its darkness from the day

Waves o'er a warrior's tomb.

SHELLEY.

REFLECTIONS ON SEEING THE GREAT NORTHERN LIGHTS.

Now day conceals her face, and darkness fills
The field, the forest, with the shades of night;
The gloomy clouds are gathering round the hills,
Veiling the last ray of the lingering light.

The abyss of heaven appears-the stars are kindling round,
Who, who can count those stars, who that abyss can sound?

Just as a sand whelmed in the infinite sea,
A ray the frozen iceberg sends to heaven;
A feather in the fierce flame's majesty;

A mote by midnight's maddened whirlwind driven,
Am I 'midst this parade: an atom, less than nought –
Lost and o'erpower'd by the gigantic thought.

And we are told by wisdom's knowing ones,

That there are multitudes of worlds like this; That yon unnumber'd lamps are glowing suns, And each a link amidst creation is :

There dwells the Godhead too-there shines his wisdom's essence,

His everlasting strength-his all-supporting presence.

Where are thy secret laws, O Nature, where?
Thy moonlight's dazzle in the wintry zone:
How dost thou light from ice thy torches there?
There has thy sun some sacred, secret throne?
See in yon frozen seas what glories have their birth;
Hence night leads forth the day, to illuminate the earth.
Come then, philosopher! whose privileged eye
Reads nature's hidden pages and decrees:

Come now and tell us, whence, and where, and why,
Earth's icy regions glow with lights like these,
That fill our souls with awe :-profound inquirer, say,
For thou dost count the stars and trace the planets way.
What fills with dazzling beams the illumin'd air?
What wakes the flames that light the firmament?
The lightning's flash;-there is no thunder there—
And earth and heaven with fiery sheets are blent:
The winter night now gleams with brighter, lovelier ray,
Than ever yet adorn'd the golden summer's day.

Is there some vast, some hidden magazine,

Where the gross darkness flames of fire supplies? Some phosphoric fabric, which the mountains screen, Whose clouds of light above those mountains rise? When the winds rattle loud around the foaming sea, And lift the waves to heaven in thundering revelry? Thou knowest not! 'tis doubt, 'tis darkness all ;

Even here on earth our thoughts benighted stray, And all is mystery through this worldly ball.

Who then can reach or read yon milky way?

Creation's heights and depths are all unknown-untrod; Who then shall say how vast, how great creation's GOD. BOWRING'S Russian Anthology.

TO HORROR.

Dark HORROR!-bear me where the field of fight
Scatters contagion on the tainted gale,
When to the Moon's faint beam,.
On many a carcase shine the dews of night,
And a dead silence stills the vale

Save when at times is heard the glutted Raven's scream.
Where some wreck'd army from the Conqueror's might,
Speed their disastrous flight,

With thee, fierce Genius! let me trace their way, And hear at times the deep heart-groan

Of some poor sufferer left to die alone,

His sore wounds smarting with the winds of night; And we will pause, where, on the wild,

The Mother to her frozen breast,

On the heap'd snows reclining, clasps her child,
And with him sleeps, chill'd to eternal rest!

Black HORROR! speed we to the bed of Death,
Where he, whose murderous power afar
Blasts with the myriad plagues of war,

Struggles with his last breath;

Then to his wildly-starting eyes

The phantoms of the murder'd rise;
Then on his frenzied ear,

Their groans for vengeance, and the Demon's yell,
In one heart maddening chorus swell.

Cold on his brow convulsing stands the dew,
And night eternal darkens on his view.

SOUTHEY.