University of Virginia Library


21

A LONDON NIGHT

SONNET

To-night above our City's roofs and towers
The clear moon hangs within a summer sky
Almost. What souls to-night with kiss and sigh
Will mix wild hearts and gather passion's flowers!
How through the night's dim moonlit lamplit hours
Bright angels and dark angels fleeting by
Will blend the joys that live, the joys that die!
At Woman's touch will gleam what magic bowers?
To-night, to-night, some pure soft virgin heart
With all its own for love's sweet sake will part,
Trusting some human spirit with love supreme.
To-night...in thirty years what will night's air
Behold? A face immeasurably fair?
Or features fouler than hell's foulest dream?
Sept. 30, 1903.