The Mysteries of Udolpho

SONG OF THE EVENING HOUR

Last of the Hours, that track the fading Day,

I move along the realms of twilight air,

And hear, remote, the choral song decay

Of sister-nymphs, who dance around his car. Then, as I follow through the azure void,

His partial splendour from my straining eye

Sinks in the depth of space; my only guide

His faint ray dawning on the farthest sky; Save that sweet, lingering strain of gayer Hours,

Whose close my voice prolongs in dying notes,

While mortals on the green earth own its pow'rs,

As downward on the evening gale it floats. When fades along the West the Sun's last beam,

As, weary, to the nether world he goes,

And mountain-summits catch the purple gleam,

And slumbering ocean faint and fainter glows, Silent upon the globe's broad shade I steal,

And o'er its dry turf shed the cooling dews,

And ev'ry fever'd herb and flow'ret heal,

And all their fragrance on the air diffuse. Where'er I move, a tranquil pleasure reigns;

O'er all the scene the dusky tints I send,

That forests wild and mountains, stretching plains

And peopled towns, in soft confusion blend. Wide o'er the world I waft the fresh'ning wind,

Low breathing through the woods and twilight vale,

In whispers soft, that woo the pensive mind

Of him, who loves my lonely steps to hail. His tender oaten reed I watch to hear,

Stealing its sweetness o'er some plaining rill,

Or soothing ocean's wave, when storms are near,

Or swelling in the breeze from distant hill! I wake the fairy elves, who shun the light;

When, from their blossom'd beds, they slily peep,

And spy my pale star, leading on the night,--

Forth to their games and revelry they leap; Send all the prison'd sweets abroad in air,

That with them slumber'd in the flow'ret's cell;

Then to the shores and moon-light brooks repair,

Till the high larks their matin-carol swell. The wood-nymphs hail my airs and temper'd shade,

With ditties soft and lightly sportive dance,

On river margin of some bow'ry glade,

And strew their fresh buds as my steps advance: But, swift I pass, and distant regions trace,

For moon-beams silver all the eastern cloud,

And Day's last crimson vestige fades apace;

Down the steep west I fly from Midnight's shroud.

The moon was now rising out of the sea. She watched its gradual

progress, the extending line of radiance it threw upon the waters, the

sparkling oars, the sail faintly silvered, and the wood-tops and the

battlements of the watch-tower, at whose foot she was sitting, just

tinted with the rays. Emily's spirits were in harmony with this scene.

As she sat meditating, sounds stole by her on the air, which she

immediately knew to be the music and the voice she had formerly heard at

midnight, and the emotion of awe, which she felt, was not unmixed with

terror, when she considered her remote and lonely situation. The sounds

drew nearer.