The Poetical Works of John Payne :: :: University of Virginia Library

O NIGHT, that holdest all the keys of dreams,
Unfolding o'er the azure of the sea!
I give thee welcome with a flowerful hand,
For lo! I have been very fain for thee.
I give thee loving welcome, for meseems
Thou knowest well that I do love thee so
And in return dost hold my homage dear
And usest well to pour celestial balms
Of comfort, that thy servant winds have fanned
Together, on me from thy cool dusk palms
And from the jewelled hollow of thy sphere,
Brimmed with moon-pearl and silver of the stars.
For often, when my heart was sore with scars
Of striving and I could not weep for woe,
Thine airs have brought sweet singings to mine ears
And loosened all the silver springs of tears;
Thy hands have soothed the fierceness from my grief
And in thy robe's wide purple thou hast drawn
And folded all my sorrows, while the sills

228

Of heaven dropped sapphire. So I had relief
Of sadness, ere the primrose of the Dawn
Budded pale gold upon the emerald hills.

Thou knowest I have ever been to thee,
Fair, simple Night, full constant in my love,
How I have cherished, all delights above,
The folding of thy pinions over me.
Mine has been no ephemeral fantasy,
That loves and loves not in one short hour's span
And knows not if Day's rose have sweeter breath
Than thine own violets. Ere the noon began
To burden all the air with weary gold
And doom all wandering winds to fiery death,
My spirit to thy sheltering arms did flee.
Ere yet the chariot of the sunset rolled
Fierce to the dying as an ancient knight
And many a mist grew painted o'er the sea,
I saw thee in the haze, with silent feet,
Sweep o'er the distance, Mother of the Night,
Wrapping the hills in shadow, fold on fold:
I saw thy vans across the landscape meet
And my faint soul arose to welcome thee.

My faint soul sinks into thy windless deeps,
Misted with gold, O Mother of the Dreams!
And gazes with a wonderless content,
Up through thy lymph, to where the azure floors
Of heaven are with a gradual glory rent,
That through the cloisters of the æther leaps
And in thy lap its spreading splendours pours,
In flood on flood of golden-crested streams.
For slow sweet wonders lie for me impearled
Within thy womb and in thy jewelled sands;
And all the lute-strings of my soul are swept,
By the unfolding ripples of thy tide
And rhythmic pulsing of thy tender hands,

229

To melodies of some enchanted world,
That through the ardour of the day has slept
And will not glimmer through its veiling groves
Of tender mystery, till the Night divide
The gates of slumber: songs of half-felt bliss
And dreams, through which a strange sweet echo roves
And murmurs in a mist of fragrances
And all sound's sweets do wane and swell and kiss,
Like night-birds in the blossomed oranges.

My faint eyes loathe the ardours of the noon
And fiery splendours of the dying sun;
Joys that are stretched to madness, love that burns
And fierce delights that weary, scarce begun.
The roses wound me with their passionate bloom;
I weary of the lilies' laden breath;
And all the flowerage of my yearning turns
Toward its pearlèd lodestar of the moon
And tarries for thy grave and kindly gloom,
O thronèd Night! to soothe the hot fierce blue
Of heaven with its webs of amethyst;
My sad soul listens for thine airs to bring
Soft harmonies and low to me and sing
Sweet songs of thee and of thy shadow Death
And strains to see thy woven hands of mist
The meadows of the upper æther strew
With fair and tender lavishment of flowers
And sow thick goldcups in the purple meads,
Far dearer than the gay and flaunting weeds
That drink the sunlight in the noontide hours.