—­[79] When low-hung clouds each star of summer hide,
  And fireless are the valleys far and wide,
  Where the brook brawls along the public [80] road
  Dark with bat-haunted ashes stretching broad,
  [81] Oft has she taught them on her lap to lay 265
  The shining glow-worm; or, in heedless play,
  Toss it from hand to hand, disquieted;
  While others, not unseen, are free to shed
  Green unmolested light upon their mossy bed. [82]

    Oh! when the sleety showers her path assail, 270
  And like a torrent roars the headstrong gale; [83]
  No more her breath can thaw their fingers cold,
  Their frozen arms her neck no more can fold;
  [84] Weak roof a cowering form two babes to shield,
  And faint the fire a dying heart can yield! 275
  Press the sad kiss, fond mother! vainly fears
  Thy flooded cheek to wet them with its tears;
  [85] No tears can chill them, and no bosom warms,
  Thy breast their death-bed, coffined in thine arms!

    Sweet are the sounds that mingle from afar, 280
  Heard by calm lakes, as peeps the folding star,
  Where the duck dabbles ’mid the rustling sedge,
  And feeding pike starts from the water’s edge,
  Or the swan stirs the reeds, his neck and bill
  Wetting, that drip upon the water still; 285
  And heron, as resounds the trodden shore,
  Shoots upward, darting his long neck before.
  [86]
    Now, with religious awe, the farewell light
  Blends with the solemn colouring of night; [87]
  ’Mid groves of clouds that crest the mountain’s brow, 290
  And round the west’s proud lodge their shadows throw,
  Like Una [T] shining on her gloomy way,
  The half-seen form of Twilight roams astray;
  Shedding, through paly loop-holes mild and small,
  Gleams that upon the lake’s still bosom fall; [88] 295
  [89] Soft o’er the surface creep those lustres pale
  Tracking the motions of the fitful gale. [90]
  With restless interchange at once the bright
  Wins on the shade, the shade upon the light. 
  No favoured eye was e’er allowed to gaze 300
  On lovelier spectacle in faery days;
  When gentle Spirits urged a sportive chase,
  Brushing with lucid wands the water’s face;
  While music, stealing round the glimmering deeps,
  Charmed the tall circle of the enchanted steeps. 305
 —­The lights are vanished from the watery plains: 
  No wreck of all the pageantry remains. 
  Unheeded night has overcome the vales: 
  On the dark earth the wearied vision fails;
  The latest lingerer of the forest train, 310
  The lone black fir, forsakes the faded plain;
  Last evening sight, the cottage smoke, no more,
  Lost in the thickened darkness, glimmers hoar;
  And, towering from the sullen dark-brown mere,
  Like a black wall, the mountain-steeps appear. [91] 315