The Setting Sun
'Tis sweet to trace the setting sun
Wheel blushing down the west;
When his diurnal race is run,
The traveller stops the gloom to shun,
And lodge his bones to rest.
Far from the eye he sinks apace,
But still throws back his light
From oceans of resplendent grace,
Whence sleeping vesper paints her face,
And bids the sun good night.
To those hesperian fields by night
My thoughts in vision stray,
Like spirits stealing into light,
From gloom upon the wing of flight,
Soaring from time away.
Our eagle, with his pinions furl'd,
Takes his departing peep,
And hails the occidental world,
Swift round whose base the globes are whirl'd,
Whilst weary creatures sleep.
The Rising Sun
The king of day rides on,
To give the placid morning birth;
On wheels of glory moves his throne,
Whose light adorns the earth.
When once his limpid maid
Has the imperial course begun,
The lark deserts the dusky glade,
And soars to meet the sun.
Up from the orient deep,
Aurora mounts without delay,
With brooms of light the plains to sweep,
And purge the gloom away.
Ye ghostly scenes give way,
Our king is coming now in sight,
Bearing the diadem of day,
Whose crest expels the night.
Thus we, like birds, retreat
To groves, and hide from ev'ry eye;
Our slumb'ring dust will rise and meet
Its morning in the sky.
The immaterial sun,
Now hid within empyreal gloom,
Will break forth on a brighter throne,
And call us from the tomb.
