But the ray reddens, and the light grows dim. The cooling iron, counterpaned with sand By those night servitors, no longer grim In unaccustomed glow, from the green land And yonder sky, now ceases to command Our thoughts to wander. As we backward gaze, The blast renews; with aspiration grand The flames again soar upward: but we raise Our glances to God’s Lamp, which overawes their blaze. So forward through the stillness we proceed. Winding around a hill, the white road leaves Life, light, and noise behind. We, gladly freed From human interruption, we, mute thieves, Pass onward through Night’s treasure; each receives From her rich store his bosom full of wealth, For secret hoarding. Now an oak-wood weaves A cloister way to sanctify the stealth Practised in loving guise, and for the spirit’s health. We climb into the moonlight once again. A broken rail beside the way doth keep Neglectful guard above the Vale’s domain. The Vale is in the silence laid asleep, Not far below. Among her beauties peep The wakeful stars, and from above her bed The grey night-veil, wherein to rest so deep She sank, the Moon hath lifted; yet the thread Of slumber holds, the dream hath from her face not fled. Yon meadow track leads by the church; it saves Ten minutes if we follow it. We laugh To see our saving lost among the graves. Deciphering a moonlit Epitaph We linger, laugh and sigh. All mirth is half Made up of melancholy. There is pure Humour in woe. Man’s grief is oft the staff On which his happy thoughts can lean secure; And he who most enjoys, he too can most endure. We leave the tombstones, death-like, white, and still, Fixed in the dim light,—awful, unbeheld. A squalid village, straggling up a hill We pass. In passing, one among us yelled, And from no gallinaceous throat expelled A crow sonorous. From the near church tower, Through the cold, voiceless air of night there knell’d The passing bell of a departed hour: What sign of budding day? How will the morning flower? CHIPS. There is a saying that a good workman is known by his chips. Such a prodigious accumulation of chips takes place in our Manufactory, that we infer we must have some first-rate workmen about us. There is also a figure of speech, concerning a chip of the old block. The chips with which _our_ old block (aged fifteen weeks) is overwhelmed every week, would make some five-and-twenty blocks of similar dimensions.