The Evening Star. 
Ere yet unhappy Orpheus sighed 
To listening woods at even-tide ; 
Ere Homer sang night’s mellow noon, 
The vaulted sky, the unsullied moon ;* 
The first-born poet hymned to thee 
His song of rude idolatry ; 
Zephyr, as “neath a steep hill’s crest 
He lay, reclined on Echo’s breast, 
Caught up the wild and novel rhyme, 
Bore it aloft from clime to clime, 
And thus, while round the world it ran, 
Music and Verse were taught to man. 
Mild Genius of the Summer Night ! 
How oft, beneath thy guardian light, 
My school-boy feet have braved the gloom 
Of haunted glen, or church-yard tomb ! 
ere yon forlorn old abbey rears 
Her spectre figure, grey in years, 
Through whose lone courts, when winds are still, 
Time’s awful voice sounds strange and chill, 
I’ve stood with her—the young, the mild— 
The blue-eyed Ellen—nature’s child! 
Night was around us, night above, 
And heaven put on a look of love, 
While, ‘neath her sweet, expressive glance, 
The maid’s transfigured countenance 
Shone more than nymph or seraph fair, 
For tenderness and hope were there. 
But youth’s gay dream is over now, 
The sriows of age are on my brow ; 
And she—affection’s hapless slave— 
Sleeps in her lone, unnoticed grave, 
Watched by the moon in regal car, 
And hallowed by the Evening Star ! 
Hark ! round their old, accustomed tree, 
The gathering gnats hum drowsily ; 
And night, with finger-dim and grey, 
Hath closed ‘the eyelids of the day: 
’Tis gloom around, o’er flood and fell— 
Sweet Star of Evening! fare thee well! 
* Qe 8 of? ey ovpaw aorpa Gasiyny aeaPe oernvny 
Datyer’> 
Hom. Ii. 
{Ocr. 
—— 
