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(Excerpt)
’T IS midnight!—through the dusky pines | |
| The night-wind faintly sighs,—the dew | |
| Just twinkles on the leaf, as shines | |
| The starlight from its home of blue: | |
| Around how calm! above how clear! | 5 |
| No murmur wakes an echo here. | |
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| The broad deep river noiseless flows, | |
| The ripple on the shore expires | |
| Without a sound,—its bosom glows, | |
| Another sky with all its fires, | 10 |
| And glasses purely, deeply down | |
| Night’s raven brow and starry crown. | |
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| Far down the winding silent bay | |
| Where wave and sky uniting sweep | |
| In darker lines, a trembling ray | 15 |
| Comes gleaming o’er the mirrored deep; | |
| Bright, bright amid the horizon’s gloom | |
| It glows like hope above the tomb! | |
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| Through many a wild and stormy night, | |
| Amid the tempest’s gathering war | 20 |
| And hissing wrath, that Cresset’s light | |
| Above the surge has beamed,—a star | |
| To cheer the seaman’s eye, when dark | |
| And dashing billows smote his bark. | |
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| But thus, when heaven and earth are still, | 25 |
| And e’en yon snowy wild swan’s cry | |
| Is hushed,—no echo from the hill, | |
| And winds are sleeping in the sky,— | |
| How pure that midnight beacon glows, | |
| The brooding spirit of repose! | 30 |
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| But see!—yon eastern blood-red streaks | |
| Deepening along night’s starry band! | |
| Slow rising o’er the wood-crowned peaks, | |
| Whose shadows sweep the distant strand, | |
| Peere forth the queen of night,—but now | 35 |
| The crown is fading on her brow. | |
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| Her glance is on the deep,—so dim | |
| And joyless o’er the blue wave bending, | |
| You scarce may mark on ocean’s brim | |
| Yon white sail with the sea-mist blending; | 40 |
| Away!—how pale its light wing flies, | |
| Like some pure spirit of the skies! | |
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| Lone lovely night! in hours like this, | |
| To heaven first rose my raptured eye; | |
| And pictured forms in dreams of bliss | 45 |
| Came floating through the shadowy sky; | |
| Gay dreams of youth!—they could not stay, | |
| But fled like yon lone sail away! * * * * * | |
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