Elegy IV. Midnight

Sol rolls no more his beamy car on high, No more benignly pours the radiant ray, Sad sable darkness wide obscures the sky, And gloomy night usurps the realms of day.

Gay Pleasure treads no more the glossy green, Lost are the beauties of the verdant plain, Creation droops thro' Nature's ample scene, And Chaos re-assumes his dreary reign.

Soft warbling thro' the silent ether's space, No easy notes now strike the listening ear, But owls and bats, deep night's ill-omen'd race, Appal the timid soul with wild distracting fear.

Horror too, clad in terrible array Of phantom beings, leads his bug-bear train, From opening graves now solemn sounds dismay, And ghosts dire yelling stalk the dreary plain.

O'er sheeted lakes, and heaths of misty hue, Where fancy forms the fairy's magic court, By the pale moon, or vapours glimmering blue, Th' ideal elves of night their gambols sport.

Now where devotion holds her high abode, And vivid tapers gloom the sacred isle, To sound the praises of th' eternal God, The loud-peal'd organ shakes the holy pile.

Hail midnight, hail, and thou the solemn scene, The sadly-serious melancholy's cell, Where nought of Folly's savage train is seen, But where the sons of thought delight to dwell.

Let artful statesmen scheme the awful hour, Let empire wake ambition's daring train, To rouse rebellion's fell destructive power, And give dire discord o'er mankind to reign.

Let avarice gore the wretched miser's breast, To watch with vulture care his art-rais'd mine; Let fierce desire distract the lover's rest To sigh sad plaints at cruel Sylvia's shrine.

Or where the Bacchanalians hold their reign, And riot rules with wild despotic sway, Let lavish spendthrifts swell the bestial train, And thoughtless in life's fatal follies stray.

Far other bliss, far other joys be mine, O thought-befriending Contemplation sweet! To where the midnight tapers dimly shine, Conduct, benign, a studious votary's feet.

Give me in Learning's ample field to stray, Its sacred tomes of treasur'd sense unfold, With steady step to trace the devious way, Where sleep the latent mines of classic gold.

Or 'midst the solemn stillness of the grove, Where Philomela warbles wood-notes wild: With me, O Contemplation, deign to rove, The sacred scene inviting musings mild.

There, till gay Phoebus gilds another sky, With thee I'll waste the sweetly-serious hour, From life's low scenes, and fatal follies fly, And woo sage wisdom in her cavern'd bower.

These sounds while fancy's plastic power exprest, As thro' the solitary wilds I stray'd; Majestic, like a Roman matron drest, Imagination saw the heavenly maid.

Around a sudden gleam illum'd the place, The path with easy elegance she trod, When thus—soft-smiling with angelic grace, " Here Contemplation holds her still abode:

" Here oft my Milton, in the midnight gloom, " Has caught the lofty sentiment refin'd, " Here oft sought science in her cloister'd dome, " Hence fill'd the mighty volume of his mind:

" Here learnt above the duller sons of earth " In all the dignity of thought to rise, " Here plann'd the work, that told creation's birth, " Hence gain'd his native palace in the skies.

" But rais'd to join the aerial choir on high, " That chant harmonious at th' Almighty's throne, " Mov'd at the pensive world's complaintive sigh, " I to direct them sent this second son."

When, leading in her hand a reverend sage, Her heavenly accents thus my ears addrest, " Receive the instructor of a darkened age, " Religion's friend, and Piety's high-priest."

She ceas'd, and to my fancy's longing sight No more was given the glorious form to see, She fled along the thickening shades of night, And left the world to Darkness, Young, and Me.