His folded flock secure, the shepherd home Hies, merry-hearted; and by turns relieves The ruddy milkmaid of her brimming pail; The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart, Unknowing what the joy-mix'd anguish means Sincerely loves, by that best language shown Of cordial glances and obliging deeds. Onward they pass, o'er many a panting height, And valley sunk, and unfrequented; where At fall of eve the fairy people throng, In various game and revelry to pass The summer night, as village stories tell. But far about they wander from the grave Of him, whom his ungentle fortune urg'd Against his own sad breast to lift the hand Of impious violence. The lonely tower Is also shunn'd; whose mournful chambers hold, So night-struck fancy dreams, the yelling ghost. [Illustration: Evening yields the world to night] Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge, The glow-worm lights his gem; and, through the dark, A moving radiance twinkles. Evening yields The world to night; not in her winter robe Of massy Stygian woof, but loose array'd In mantle dun. A faint erroneous ray, Glanc'd from the imperfect surfaces of things, Flings half an image on the straining eye; While wavering woods, and villages, and streams, And rocks, and mountain tops, that long retain'd The ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene, Uncertain if beheld. Sudden to heaven Thence weary vision turns; where, leading soft The silent hours of love, with purest ray Sweet Venus shines; and from her genial rise When daylight sickens, till it springs afresh, Unrival'd reigns, the fairest lamp of night. As thus the effulgence tremulous I drink With cherish'd gaze, the lambent lightnings shoot Across the sky; or horizontal dart, In wondrous shapes--by fearful murmuring crowds Portentous deem'd. Amid the radiant orbs That more than deck, that animate the sky, The life-infusing suns of other worlds, Lo! from the dread immensity of space Returning, with accelerated course, The rushing cornet to the sun descends; And as he sinks below the shading earth, With awful train projected o'er the heavens, The guilty nations tremble. But, above Those superstitious horrors that enslave The fond sequacious herd, to mystic faith And blind amazement prone, the enliven'd few, Whose god-like minds philosophy exalts, The glorious stranger hail. They feel a joy Divinely great: they in their powers exult, That wondrous force of thought which mounting spurns This dusky spot and measures all the sky, While from his far excursion through the wilds Of barren ether, faithful to his time, They see the blazing wonder rise anew, In seeming terror clad, but kindly bent To work the will of all sustaining Love; From his huge vapory train perhaps to shake