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(From Il Penseroso and L’Allegro: Night)
OLD Thames! thy merry waters run | |
| Gloomily now, without star or sun! | |
| The wind blows o’er thee, wild and loud, | |
| And heaven is in its death-black shroud; | |
| And the rain comes down with all its might, | 5 |
| Darkening the face of the sullen Night. | |
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| Midnight dies! There booms a sound, | |
| From all the church-towers thundering round; | |
| Their echoes into each other run, | |
| And sing out the grand night’s awful “One!” | 10 |
| Saint Bride, Saint Sepulchre, great Saint Paul, | |
| Unto each other, in chorus, call! | |
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| Who speaks? ’T was nothing: the patrol grim | |
| Moves stealthily o’er the pavement dim; | |
| The debtor dreams of the gripe of law; | 15 |
| The harlot goes staggering to her straw; | |
| And the drunken robber, and beggar bold | |
| Laugh loud, as they limp by the Bailey Old. | |
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| Hark,—I hear the blood in a felon’s heart! | |
| I see him shiver—and heave—and start | 20 |
| (Does he cry?) from his last short bitter slumber, | |
| To find that his days have reached their number,— | |
| To feel that there comes, with the morning text, | |
| Blind death, and the scaffold, and then—what next? | |
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| Sound, stormy Autumn! Brazen bell, | 25 |
| Into the morning send your knell! | |
| Mourn, Thames! keep firm your chant of sorrow; | |
| Mourn, men! for a fellow-man dies to-morrow. | |
| Alas! none mourn; none care;—the debt | |
| Of pity the whole wide world forget! | 30 |
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