Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 1.djvu/270

230 Pallid and cold the Moon descends to cave

Her sinking beams beneath the Western wave;

But thou still mov'st alone, of light the Source—

Who can o'ertake thee in thy fiery course?

Oaks of the mountains fall, the rocks decay,

Weighed down with years the hills dissolve away.

A certain space to yonder Moon is given,

She rises, smiles, and then is lost in Heaven.

Ocean in sullen murmurs ebbs and flows,

But thy bright beam unchanged for ever glows!

When Earth is darkened with tempestuous skies,

When Thunder shakes the sphere and Lightning flies,

Thy face, O Sun, no rolling blasts deform,

Thou look'st from clouds and laughest at the Storm.

To Ossian, Orb of Light! thou look'st in vain,

Nor cans't thou glad his agèd eyes again,

Whether thy locks in Orient Beauty stream,

Or glimmer through the West with fainter gleam—

But thou, perhaps, like me with age must bend;

Thy season o'er, thy days will find their end,

No more yon azure vault with rays adorn,

Lull'd in the clouds, nor hear the voice of Morn.

Exult, O Sun, in all thy youthful strength!

Age, dark unlovely Age, appears at length,

As gleams the moonbeam through the broken cloud

While mountain vapours spread their misty shroud—

The Northern tempest howls along at last,

And wayworn strangers shrink amid the blast.