Rufus Dawes (1803–1859)

THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY unfurls her light,

And wheels her course in a joyous flight:

I know her track through the balmy air,

By the blossoms that cluster and whiten there;

She leaves the tops of the mountains green,

And gems the valley with crystal sheen.

At morn, I know where she rested at night,

For the roses are gushing with dewy delight;

Then she mounts again, and around her flings

A shower of light from her purple wings,

Till the spirit is drunk with the music on high

That silently fills it with ecstacy!

At noon she hies to a cool retreat,

Where bowering elms over waters meet;

She dimples the wave, where the green leaves dip,

That smiles, as it curls, like a maiden’s lip,

When her tremulous bosom would hide, in vain,

From her lover, the hope that she loves again.

At eve, she hangs o’er the western sky

Dark clouds for a glorious canopy;

And round the skirts of each sweeping fold,

She paints a border of crimson and gold,

Where the lingering sunbeams love to stay,

When their god in his glory has pass’d away.

She hovers around us at twilight hour,

When her presence is felt with the deepest power;

She mellows the landscape, and crowds the stream

With shadows that flit like a fairy dream:—

Still wheeling her flight through the gladsome air,

The Spirit of Beauty is every where!