too, softly burns with a crimson glow--and, as sinks the sun
below the mountains, Windermere, gorgeous in her array as the western
sky, keeps fading away as it fades, till at last all the ineffable
splendour expires, and the spirit that has been lost to this world in
the transcendent vision, or has been seeing all things appertaining to
this world in visionary symbols, returns from that celestial sojourn,
and knows that its lot is, henceforth as heretofore, to walk weariedly
perhaps, and woe-begone, over the no longer divine but disenchanted
earth!

It is very kind in the moon and stars--just like them--to rise so soon
after sunset. The heart sinks at the sight of the sky, when a
characterless night succeeds such a blaze of light--like dull reality
dashing the last vestiges of the brightest of dreams. When the moon is
"hid in her vacant interlunar cave," and not a star can "burst its
cerements," imagination in the dim blank droops her wings--our thoughts
become of the earth earthly--and poetry seems a pastime fit but for
fools and children. But how different our mood, when

"Glows the firmament with living sapphires,"

and Diana, who has ascended high in heaven, without our having once
observed the divinity, bends her silver bow among the rejoicing stars,
while the lake, like another sky, seems to contain its own luminaries, a
different division of the constellated night! 'Tis merry Windermere no
more. Yet we must not call her melancholy--though somewhat sad she
seems, and pensive, as if the stillness of universal nature did touch
her heart. How serene all the lights--how peaceful all the shadows!
Steadfast alike--as if they would brood for ever--yet transient as all
loveliness--and at the mercy of every cloud. In some places, the lake
has disappeared--in others, the moonlight is almost like sunshine--only
silver instead of gold. Here spots of quiet light--there lines of
trembling lustre--and there a flood of radiance checkered by the images
of trees. Lo! the Isle called Beautiful has now gathered upon its
central grove all the radiance issuing from that celestial Urn; and
almost in another moment it seems blended with the dim mass of mainland,
and blackness enshrouds the woods. Still as seems the night to
unobservant eyes, it is fluctuating in its expression as the face of a
sleeper overspread with pleasant but disturbing dreams. Never for any
two successive moments is the aspect of the night the same--each smile