162 HENRY KIllKE WIIITE's POEMS. 



Or catch, faint twinkling from afar, 

 The first glimpse of the eastern star. 

 Fair vesper, mildest lamp of light, 

 That heralds in imperial Night : 

 Meanwhile upon our wondering ear, 

 Shall rise, though low, yet sweetly clear, 

 The distant sounds of pastoral lute, 

 Invoking soft the sober suit 

 Of dimmest darkness— fitting well 

 With love, or sorrow's pensive spell, 

 (So erst did music's silver tone, 

 "Wake slumbering Chaos on his throne 

 And haply, then with sudden swell. 

 Shall roar the distant curfew bell, 

 While in the castle's mouldering tower, 

 The hooting owl is heard to pour 

 Her melancholy song, and scare 

 Dull Silence, brooding in the air. 

 Meanwhile her dusk and slumbering car, 

 Black-suited Night drives on from far, 

 And Cynthia's 'merging from her rear, 

 ■ Arrests the waxing darkness drear, 

 And summons to her silent call 

 Sw^eeping in their airy pall. 

 The unshrived ghosts, in fairy trance, 

 To join her moonshine morrice-dance ; 

 While around the mystic ring, 

 The shadowy shapes elastic spring. 

 Then with a passing shriek they fly, 

 Wrapt in mists along the sky, 

 And oft are by the shepherd seen, 

 In his lone night watch on the green. 



Then, hermit, let us turn our feet, 



To the low Abbey's still retreat. 



Embowered in the distant glen. 



Far from the haunts of busy men, 



Where, as we sit upon the tomb. 



The glow-worm's light may gild the gloom, 



