At twilight, when the deepening shades

Of humid night are closing fast,

When o'er bright fields and green arcades

The dazzling beams of gold are cast,

Another day its weary round

Of mingled joys and pains has run,

And clouds, with golden fringes bound,

In beauty veil the setting sun,—

A silence, pleasing, calm, profound,

Falls soothing on the raptured brain;

The hum of busy life is drowned,

On crowded street and lonely plain;

The soul, in dreamy reveries lost,

To shadowy realms far distant roves,

In stormy waves of ether tost,

Then wandering wild in heavenly groves.

And cloud-built castles, towering high,

O'er gorgeous scenes that fancy rears,

Where laughing orbs illume the sky,

Seem mansions for our future years;

The view is changing—all is gone—

The castles, fading slow away,

As misty shapes at early dawn,

Vanish before the coming day;

And storm-clouds now are lowering round;

Wild demon shapes are flitting by;

Fierce flames are rising from the ground,

And lurid lightnings cleave the sky.

Bleak snow-capped mountains o'er us frown,

While, gray and grim, through darkened air,

Towers and turrets, looking down

From rocky heights o'erhanging there,

Seem prisons for the wandering brain,

Within whose deep and caverned walls

'Tis doomed for ever to remain,

'Mid shrieks as from demoniac halls.

But pyramids above these rise,

Whose summits, gleaming gaily bright,

Inspire with hope the fainting eyes,

As bathed they stand in golden light,

Lifting their peaks high o'er the dark,

Like shining spots, that on the breast

Of darkened Luna, seem to mark

Some towering Etna's blazing crest.

Perched on these lofty granite piles,

Rise adamantine domes of power,

Secure from treachery, force, or wiles,

Reared in Ambition's happy hour,

When, having left the storm behind,

Of raging battles, fears, and hates,

He spurns their threats as empty wind,

Himself the guardian of the gates.

Here in these grand, but lonely halls,—

Unmingling with the crowd below,

And all unharmed by what befalls

Poor wanderers in this world of woe,—

Ambition, well-directed, dwells,

While songs of sorrow, care, and grief,

Give place to martial music's swells,

Which proudly hail the victor chief.

Yet not alone—without a friend

To share his toil-bought honours great,

And by congenial spirit lend

New splendour to his regal state—

Celestial Hope dwells ever near,

And Happiness, her sister gay;

And thus they live, while year on year

With rapid pinions rolls away.

But gazing from these lofty walls,

A landscape rises bright and fair,

Where happy light serenely falls

On scenes of gorgeous beauty there.

While here and there, these laughing streams,

Dimpling and eddying ever gay,

Rippling o'er golden sand, that gleams

Like the Golcondian diamond's ray,

Leap headlong down a rocky dell,

And o'er the heaven's ethereal azure

Cast many a rainbow's glittering spell,

That chains the heart in silent pleasure.

And 'neath the heaven's o'erarching bow,

Bloom laurels proud, and violets low,

In fragrance sweet, and beauty rare,

With graceful rose, and lily fair;

The mirthful grape, and crocus glad,

Yet here and there, geranium sad,

With hawthorn, and ambrosia kind,

And 'mongst them all is ivy twined.

Amid these blooming spirit-lands,

Mid chaplets wreathed by Love's own hands,

The glowing flowers of Love are found

With which his shining locks are crowned;

He sings a song, through all the day long,

Of joy, and of gladness, and glee,

And he sits so light, on his throne so bright,

Oh ever a conquering king is he!

But when the sunset's golden dyes

Have faded away from the western skies;

And these fairy gardens are seen by night.

Over their moonlit waters bright,

On which, as they're merrily flowing and dancing,

The light of the stars is twinkling and glancing,

There's a charm in that silent midnight hour,

They only can tell who have felt its power.

There's a mystic spell in its silence sweet,

And a magic thrill through all who meet,

Where kindred thoughts together stray,

Whispering beneath pale Luna's ray;

Then is the time for poet's song,

When his voice on the zephyr is borne along,

And slumbering echo, like fairy fay,

Murmurs the words of his wakening lay.

But the rosy beams of the coming morn

Tell us how fast the night has worn,

How far and free the soul has strayed,

Wandering 'mong scenes in fancy laid;

And the heathcock's note, or the matin bell,

As the morning breeze brings its pealing swell,

Recalls the soul from its musings there,

To find its "Castles"—built in air.