Night walked in beauty o’er the peaceful sea, Whose gentle waters spake tranquillity; With dreamy lull the rolling billow broke In hollow murmurs on the distant rock; The sea-bird wailed along the airy steep; The creak of distant oar was on the deep. So still the scene, the boatman’s voice was heard; The listening ear could almost catch each word; From isles remote the house-dog’s fitful bay Came floating o’er the waters far away; And homeward wending o’er the silent hill, The lonely shepherd’s song and whistle shrill; The lulling murmur of the mountain flood, That sung its night-hymn to the solitude; The curlew’s wild and desolate farewell, As slow she sailed adown the darksome dell; The heathcock whirring o’er the heathy vale; The mateless plover’s far-forsaken wail; The rush of tides that round the islands ran, And danced like maniacs in the moonlight wan,— All formed a scene so wild, and yet so fair, As might have wooed the heart from dreams of care, If aught had charms to soothe, or balm to heal, The pangs that guilt is ever doomed to feel.... Morning. Day dawns, and from the main the mist is furled, The night-cloak of a solitary world; And slow emerging from the fleecy cloud The mountains soar like giants from the shroud. High o’er the rest, and towering to the storm, Glooms o’er the ocean Hoy’s majestic form; From his lone head, as roll the clouds away, Behold Creation bursting into day, As first it broke from night and nothingness, When the Great Spirit brooded o’er the abyss. How calm and clear the boundless waters seem, As if awakening from a heavenly dream; The little isles within their bosom lie, Like dwellers in a bright infinity; The crag terrific beetling o’er the west Beholds the heaven reflected in their breast. The dark-brown hills embrace each silent bay That loves amid their solitude to stray; And far beneath, with low sepulchral sound, Moans the dark torrent through the dell profound; And from the thunder-throne, the mountain cairn, Shrieks to the waste the solitary erne.... Scenes of my song, of earliest smiles and tears, Ye wake the memories of departed years! The distant murmur of your mountain streams Steals o’er my spirit with departed dreams, With many a tale and recollected lay, Which, like the twilight of an autumn day, Faint on your shores, of wonderful and wild, Meet for the musing moods of Fancy’s child. There have I roamed o’er many a soaring steep When the last day-gleam died along the deep, And o’er the still and solitary land, The distant music of the reaper band Came soft and mournful on the pensive soul, As mermaid’s siren song o’er ocean’s roll. There have I gazed upon the pathless seas, As on the gates of two eternities—