In rapture do I now behold

Thy giant-crested trees;

That first the morning sun of gold,

Embraces 'mid the breeze!

Here let the care-worn worldling come ;

Leave off his tiresome trade;

The noisy commerce-wheels of home,

And pace awhile each glade;

Where mountain-monarchs wave their heads

'Mid the unsullied air,

And thus, in great cathedral shades,

Exult o'er cold despair!

When Night's inconstant, virgin queen,

Glides o'er her path of blue;

Thy palace, placed in halls of green,

Looks spell-like to the view.

There sleeps calm beauty all around;
No sound disturbs the air;

But all is mute as fairy-ground,
And to the soul as fair.

Behold these two gigantic pines ;

Twin sentinels of old!

Which mock the lightning when it shines

In robes of thunder roll'd!

These seem eternal as the world,

Rearing their proud heads high; Unscathed by all the lightnings hurl'd Throughout the lowering sky!

O, Mighty Man!—how mean art thou;--How fragile seems thy form,

When placed beside these monarchs now;
These Samsons of the storm!

Fit trophies that might represent
The powerful and the brave;

And stand as living monuments
O'er Bruce' and Wallace' grave!

"Tis Autumn, and the rustling leaves Are falling thickly round;

And every passing zephyr heaves

Its millions to the ground.

"Tis Nature sinking to repose, When fleeting life is o'er;

Like generations that now close

Their eyes, to mourn no more!

Yet is this quiet land lovely still;

The light steals strangely now,

Adown the gently sloping hill,

Through every opening bough;

And falls like magic round my feet,

Upon the sward so green;

Which makes each sweet scene still more sweet;—

More sacred and serene!

So, peaceful land, I must depart,

And leave thy charms behind;

To mix with scenes that soil the heart;

Where Nature's eye is blind.

Where Artifice in splendour reigns;—

Where Care is throned in might,

And where the bright sun seldom deigns

To shed his lustrous light!

THE NILE.

I DREAMT of sailing on the stately Nile.-
The crescent moon had spread her silvery light
O'er Egypt's mighty river! Far along
Fair cities lay like islands, for the stream

Had overflowed its banks, and wander'd far
Like some unbounded ocean newly sprung
From the volcanic world's unfathom'd womb!
To animate a barren hemisphere,
And call its wrinkled herbage into life.

Upon a lofty chain of mountains stood The great and peerless Memphis, all enthroned In the great glory of departed years!

Her gorgeous fanes, and towers, and obelisks, Seen through the dusky paleness of the night, Like fairy structures scatter'd through the sky! The crafty work of her ingenious sons,

Who perish'd in the act, beneath the rays

Of an electric sun!

Half hid in clouds,

With all its terraces-its pillar'd state-
Its balustrades, its pediments, and towers;
Old Vulcan's heathen temple sought the sky.—
Work of a thousand years, to emulate
The fated Babel, whose confusèd tongues
Are yet a curse, a drawback on the world!

As though it were an highway into Heaven,
So rose the mighty pyramid of pride,

Till lost in azure distance.

Spreading far

The richest gardens of the earth appear'd
Around the palace of the Pharaohs, where
All that the fancy or the eye inspires
Shone out in eastern magnitude, and these
Sprung from the sparkling deep, in magic power
Upon their thousand columns, while beneath,
The yellow Nile encircled the domain,
Which rear'd its porphyry like desert palms

In countless pillars in the moon-lit air;