d,
Met my rapt gaze.

Look, gentle guide! Thou see'st the imperial sun
Forth sending far his ambient glory,
O'er laughing fields and frowning highlands dun,
O'er glancing streams and woodlands hoary.
In orient clouds he steeps his amber hair,
With beams far slanting through the flaming air,
Bids Earth, with all her hymning sound, declare
The praise of everlasting light.
On my bared head I felt his pitying ray,
He loves to shine on my benighted way;
But ah, Pensylla! he brings to me no day--
Nor yet his setting, deeper night.

Prime gift of God, that veil'st His sovereign throne,
And dost of Him in sense remind me--
Blest light of Heaven, why hast thou from me flown?
To these sad shades, why hast resigned me?
On pinions of surpassing beauty borne,
When Nature hails the glad advance of morn,
In thine unsullied loveliness.
Thou com'st; but to my darkened eyes in vain--
My night, e'en in the noon of thy domain,
Yields not to thee, since joy of thine again
Can ne'er my dayless being bless.

SILENCE.

Next, Silence, fit companion of the Night,
In drearier depths my being steeping,
Like the felt presence of an unseen sprite,
With muffled tread comes creeping, creeping.
Before me close her smothering curtain swings,
And o'er my life a shadeless shadow flings;
Sinking with pitiless weight, and slow
To shroud the last sweet glimpse of Earth and Man,
And set my limits to the narrow span
Of but an arm's length here below.

O, whither shall I fly, this stroke to shun?
Where turn me, this side death and heaven?
Almost I would my course on earth were run,
And all to Night and Silence given!
I turn to man: can he but with me mourn?
Alike we're helpless, and, as bubbles borne,
We to a common haven float.
To Him, th' All-seeing and All-hearing One,
Behold, I turn! More hid than he there's none,
More silent none, none more remote!

Alas, Pensylla, stay that pious tear!
Now nearer come, I fain thy voice would hear,
Like music when the soul is dreaming;
Like music dropping from a far off sphere,
Heard by the good, when life's end draweth near.
It faintly comes, a spirit seeming,
The sounds at once entrance me, ear and soul:
The voice of winds and waves, the thunder's roll.

The steed's proud neigh, and