While thus I spin and sometimes sing, (For now and then my heart will glow) Thou measur'st Time's expanding wing By thee the noontide hour I know: Though silent thou, Still shalt thou flow, And jog along thy destin'd way: But when I glean the sultry fields, When Earth her yellow Harvest yields, Thou get'st a Holiday. Steady as Truth, on either end Thy daily task performing well, Thou'rt Meditation's constant friend, And strik'st the Heart without a Bell: Come, lovely May! Thy lengthen'd day Shall gild once more thy native plain; Curl inward here, sweet Woodbine flow'r;-- 'Companion of the lonely hour, 'I'll turn thee up again. [Illustration] MARKET-NIGHT. 'O Winds, howl not so long and loud; Nor with your vengeance arm the snow: Bear hence each heavy-loaded cloud; And let the twinkling Star-beams glow. 'Now sweeping floods rush down the slope, Wide scattering ruin.--Stars, shine soon! No other light my Love can hope; Midnight will want the joyous _Moon_. 'O guardian Spirits!--Ye that dwell Where woods, and pits, and hollow ways, The lone night-trav'ler's fancy swell With fearful tales, of older days,-- 'Press round him:--guide his willing steed Through darkness, dangers, currents, snows; Wait where, from shelt'ring thickets freed, The dreary Heath's rude whirlwind blows. 'From darkness rushing o'er his way, The Thorn's white load it bears on high! Where the short furze all shrouded lay, Mounts the dried grass;--Earth's bosom dry. 'Then o'er the Hill with furious sweep It rends the elevated tree-- Sure-footed beast, thy road thou'lt keep; Nor storm nor darkness startles thee! 'O blest assurance, (trusty steed,) To thee the buried road is known; _Home_, all the spur thy footsteps need, When loose the frozen rein is thrown, 'Between the roaring blasts that shake The naked Elder at the door, Though not one prattler to me speak, Their sleeping sighs delight me more. 'Sound is their rest:--they little know What pain, what cold, their Father feels; But dream, perhaps, they see him now, While each the promis'd Orange peels. Would it were so!--the fire burns bright, And on the warming trencher gleams; In Expectation's raptur'd sight How precious his arrival seems! 'I'll look abroad!--'tis piercing cold!-- How the bleak wind assails his breast! Yet some faint light mine eyes, behold: The storm is verging o'er the West. 'There shines a _Star!_--O welcome sight!-- Through the thin vapours brightening still! Yet, 'twas beneath the fairest night The murd'rer stained yon lonely Hill. 'Mercy, kind Heav'n! such thoughts dispel! No voice, no footstep can I hear! (Where Night and Silence brooding dwell, Spreads thy cold reign, heart-chilling Fear.) 'Distressing hour! uncertain fate! O Mercy, Mercy, guide him home!-- Hark!--then I heard the distant gate;-- Repeat it, Echo; quickly, come!