Ballads for the Times (Now first collected,) Geraldine, A Modern Pyramid, Bartenus, A Thousand Lines, and other poems. By Martin F. Tupper. A new Edition, enlarged and revised |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 | Ballads for the Times |  |
Hush! how heavily droops the night
In sultry silence, calm as death!
Gloomy and hot and yet no light,
Save where the glowworm wandereth;
For the moon hath stolen by,
Mantled in the stormy sky,
And there is a stillness strange,
An awful stillness, boding change,
As if live nature held her breath,
And all in agony listeneth
Some terror undefined to hear,
Coming, coming, coming near;
Hush'd is the beetle's drowsy hum,
And the death-watch's roll on his warning drum,
Hush'd the raven, and screech owl,
And the famishing wolf on his midnight prowl,—
Silent as death.
In sultry silence, calm as death!
Gloomy and hot and yet no light,
Save where the glowworm wandereth;
For the moon hath stolen by,
Mantled in the stormy sky,
And there is a stillness strange,
An awful stillness, boding change,
As if live nature held her breath,
And all in agony listeneth
Some terror undefined to hear,
Coming, coming, coming near;
Hush'd is the beetle's drowsy hum,
And the death-watch's roll on his warning drum,
Hush'd the raven, and screech owl,
And the famishing wolf on his midnight prowl,—
Silent as death.
| Ballads for the Times | |