THE EVENING WALK

AT evening too, how pleasing was your walk,
Endeared by Friendship’s unrestrained talk,
When to the upland heights we bent our way,
To view the last beam of departing day;
How calm was all around! No playful breeze
Sighed’ mid the wavy foliage of the trees,
But all was still, save when, with drowsy song,
The gray-fly wound his sullen horn along;
And save when heard in soft, yet merry glee,
The distant church-bells’ mellow harmony;
The silver mirror of the lucid brook,
That ’mid the tufted broom its still course took;
The rugged arch, that clasped its silent tides,
With moss and rank weeds hanging down its sides:
The craggy rock, that jutted on the sight;
The shrieking bat, that took its heavy flight;
All, all was pregnant with divine delight.
We loved to watch the swallow swimming high,
In the bright azure of the vaulted sky;
Or gaze upon the clouds, whose colored pride
Was scattered thinly o’er the welkin wide,
And tinged with such variety of shade,
To the charmed soul sublimest thoughts conveyed.
In these what forms romantic did we trace,
While fancy led us o’er the realms of space!
Now we espied the thunderer in his car,
Leading the embattled seraphim to war,
Then stately towers descried, sublimely high,
In Gothic grandeur frowning on the sky —
Or saw, wide stretching o’er the azure height,
A ridge of glaciers in mural white,
Hugely terrific.— But those times are o’er,
And the fond scene can charm mine eyes no more;
For thou art gone, and I am left below,
Alone to struggle through this world of woe.

Henry Kirke White.