FOURTH DAY. 121 



rows, teem with their perfume and drink the 

 evening clews. The trouts and swallows 

 have given up their hunting to the night- 

 hawk and the bat, and thousands of beau- 

 tiful insects fall before these new devourers. 

 The wood-tick's note has commenced, and 

 timid glow-worms venture forth to hold 

 tryst upon the humid greensward. See, 

 the rising moon is tinging the few light 

 fleecy clouds swept by the gentle south wind 

 along the horizon. Such a night had the 

 blind poet in his mind's eye when he com- 

 posed those beautiful lines : 



" Now came still evening on, and twilight grey 

 Had in her sober livery all things clad : 

 Silence accompanied ; for beast and bird, 

 They to their grassy couch, these to their nests 

 Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale ; 

 She all night long her amorous descant sung ; 

 Silence was pleased : now glowed the firmament 

 With living sapphires ; Hesperus, that led 

 The starry host, rode brightest ; till the Moon, 

 Rising in clouded majesty at length, 

 Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light ; 

 And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw." 



