Can catch the quickly-passing beam,
And bid it for ever glow!


2.

The darkly-gathering clouds of night
Had quench'd the red remains of light;
O'er the hill and o'er the plain
She held her dim and shadowy reign,
And the distant billows of the main
In boundless darkness roll'd.
O'er land and sea, it was silence all,
No breezes waved the pine-wood tall,
Or swept the lonely wold:
The murmurs of the lake had died,
The reeds upon its plashy side
No rustling motion felt;
But o'er the world, as life were fled,
As Nature thro' her world were dead,
Portentous stillness dwelt.


3.

On a rock of the sea young Carthon stood,
And his lamp shone faint on the ocean-flood,
As with both his hands he toiled to raise
The seaward beacon's ruddy blaze:
And aye the warrior, far and near,