THAT SILENT MOON. BY G. W. DOANE. THAT silent moon, that silent moon, Careering now through cloudless sky, Oh! who shall tell what varied scenes Have passed beneath her placid eye, Since first, to light this wayward earth, She walked in tranquil beauty forth. How oft has guilt's unhallowed hand, Profaned her pure and holy light: But dear to her, in summer eve, By rippling wave or tufted grove, When hand in hand is purely clasped, And heart meets heart in holy love, To smile, in quiet loneliness, And hear each whispered vow and bless. THAT SILENT MOON. Dispersed along the world's wide way, When friends are far, and fond ones rove, How powerful, too, to hearts that mourn, To bring again the vanished scenes, And oft she looks, that silent moon, On lonely eyes that wake to weep, In dungeon dark, or sacred cell, Or couch, whence pain has banished sleep: O, softly beams that gentle eye, On those who mourn, and those who die. But beam on whomsoe'er she will, And fall where'er her splendour may, There's pureness in her chastened light, There's comfort in her tranquil ray : What power is hers to soothe the heartWhat power the trembing tear to start! 205 206 THAT SILENT MOON. The dewy morn let others love, Or bask them in the noontide ray; There's not an hour but has its charm, From dawning light to dying day :But oh! be mine a fairer boon That silent moon, that silent moon! THE BUGLE. BY G. MELLEN. But still the dingle's hollow throat, Till Echo seemed an answering blast.-Lady of the Lake I. O, WILD, enchanting horn! Whose music, up the deep and dewy air, 'Till a new melody is born! II. Wake, wake again; the night Is bending from her throne of Beauty down, III. Night, at its pulseless noon! When the far voice of waters mourns in song, And some tired watch-dog, lazily and long, Barks at the melancholy moon! Hark! how it sweeps away, Soaring and dying on the silent sky, As if some sprite of sound went wandering by, V. Swell, swell in glory out! Thy tones come pouring on my leaping heart, VI. O, have ye heard that peal, From sleeping city's moon-bathed battlements, VII. Or have ye, in the roar Of sea, or storm, or battle, heard it rise, Where wings and tempests never soar! VIII. Go, go; no other sound, No music, that of air or earth is born, On Midnight's fathomless profound! |