Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 011.djvu/250
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"AND I TOO IN ARCADIA."
Are ye come forth, amidst the leaves and flowers
With all bright things that wake to sunny hours,
O youths and virgins of the sylvan vales!
And doth the soft wind of the summer air,
Sport with the ringlets of your shining hair?
—I too have breath'd Arcadia's joyous gales!
Bear ye fresh wreaths some turf-built shrine to dress,
Some wood-nymph's altar of the wilderness,
Deep midst the hoary pines and olives dim?
Go! on your way all flowery perfumes flinging,
And your full chaunt along the forest singing!
—My voice once mingled in Arcadia's hymn!
Haply the woods in golden light are glowing,
And the vine-branches with their clusters bowing,
And the hills ringing unto flute and song!
Press the red grape! the ivy garland wear,
Dance in your vineyards!—I too have been there,
I, midst Arcadia's fair and festive throng!
If this were all!—but there are other hours
Than those which pour out sunshine on the bowers,
And weigh the rich trees down with summer's pride!
Dance, dance ye on!—but I have seen decay,
Steal, as a shadow, o'er the laughing day—
—Even in Arcadia's lap a rose hath died!
TWELVE O'CLOCK AT NIGHT.
"Well, if any thing be damn'd,
It will be twelve o'clock at night; that twelve
Will ne'er escape.
It is the Judas of the hours, wherein
Honest salvation is betrayed to sin."
The opinion above delivered concerning that "celebrated hour[1]" to which the literary world is so deeply indebted, is most harsh and unchristian. It is now many years since first I had the honour of forming an acquaintance with Twelve o'clock at Night, and in the interim I have known it in almost every department of life; yet I cannot charge my memory with any misconduct of which it has been guilty, that at all warrants so severe a denunciation; but, on the contrary, must own that of all the four-and-twenty hours it is the one from which I have derived the most intense and most varied pleasure, and is indeed "the sweetest morsel of the night." Whoever will take the pains of looking a little deeper than the surface of things, and of giving that attention to the subject which common charity requires of all men when a reputation is at stake, will discover that there is much more of antique prejudice than of sound reason in the damnatory clauses of the poet; and will find that if certain of the imputations levelled against the "witching hour" may formerly have had 'some slight semblance of
- ↑ "It was at the celebrated hour of twelve, &c." See "The Heroine."