unset sparkle more,
As charm to charm is added ever new,
Until the eye is weary to behold
The bounty of the grandeur there contained,
To watch the peaceful bosom of the stream
Sparkle, as with a thousand diamonds set;
While softly moving, as by inward life
Inspired, to guide it in the bidden course,
As it glides on and onward to the firth;
While in its rural bed the silver trout
Runs pouting freely, darts from stone to stone,
As of that sport it never should be sore.
And from the banks, amid the sylvan brake,
A life of melody is rising here and there
From wood-wild songsters, which their glory take
To mete a measure ever sweet and fair;
As though the task were for a victory,
And each endeavoured to advance its notes
In sweetest sounds and fairest melody.
'Tis sweetly soothing to the weary mind,
Which here hath turned a little time for rest.
Amid this scene the happy swains delight
To dwell, and draw the vigor of their life
With all the fulness nature can supply,
And every morn awake to new delights
Robust and hale, and of a healthy mind,
And so go forth to labor, and to take
The fulness of the land they labor on,
And in the meadows feed their favored kine,
So full and ready that they low and long
The maid with pails to ease the milky load.
Sweet is this scene in early hours when viewed,
What time the rising sun comes proudly forth,
Midway to east, between the south and north,
And chases quick the lingering night away,
Which, as a schoolboy, loiters on the way;
Or in the tranquil of a closing day
It is beheld in charms surpassing sweet,
Just as the sun has done his bidden course,
And goes to slumber in the favored west,
Yet lingers long to take a parting look
Upon the land which he shall leave behind,
As seeming loth to wander from the scene,
But, called of duty, moves at length away,
And draws his train behind the distant hills,
Till all is lost to the admiring gaze,
Which feasted on the beauties to the last.
For darkness comes with night, his paramour,
And cast their shadows over all the land;
And in their stilly presence creeps repose,
And folds his arms around the lifeful sounds,
Till all is hushed of nature into rest,
And all the tuneful throng is mutely still,
And comes no sound of labor from the hill.
Then thrilling is the grandeur of the calm;
The only sounds which come upon the ear,
To tell the mind that life remaineth near,
Are the soft murmurings of the silvery stream,
The gentle winds whi