Mrs. Elizabeth Jesup Eames (1813–1856)

Night-Scenes

IN her serene and solemn loveliness

She looketh down, and meets a human gaze:

Her fair familiar face, through the thin haze

Of dewy night, revealeth not the less

Her pure and perfect beauty. Fairy Moon,

Thy pearly finger silvereth the paper

Whereon I write: small need of lamp, or taper,

In this starred midnight’s haunted hour of noon.

And O, the heaven-touched radiance of thy brow

Is like a dream of poetry, enchanting

All the dark depths of my lone heart, beating

With one bright vision of the past, that now

Shines seraph-like, all sanctified and sainted.

But for that spiritual presence, O how oft my heart had fainted!