University of Virginia Library

Deep trance of Night! a mystic power is thine,
Which sanctifies creation with a charm
Beyond what day-beams in their brightest glow
Can emanate, whatever scene they gild.
But oh! if ever into heart of man
The Midnight like a mute religion sent
Her spirit, surely, when the captured monk
Down the dim chambers of the Wartburg paced,
Thy genius, then, in solemn glory reign'd!
There, by his window-turret, lofty, bleak
And lone, unharm'd in holy peace he mused,
The past revolved, and o'er his future pray'd.
But moments rise in this unfathom'd life
Of ours, beyond revealing prose, or rhyme
E'er to unveil; so charged with secret might,
They into voiceless sentiment transform
Our being; like a cloud, we seem to float
In formless dreams, with visionary shapes
Confounded; till at length, calm'd nature feels
By truth replenish'd, and distinctive thoughts
Melt from the heart, pathetic, soft, profound,
Like tears of pity in a good man's eye.
Then, all we have been, are, or hope to be,
Blends in wild softness; and the soul o'er-sway'd
Throbs with the spirit of unbreathèd prayer.

All that we have been, yes! the night restores:
Form after Form we loved, or knew, or fear'd,
Moves o'er the platform of a summon'd past;
While dead eyes open, and familiar smiles
Fall on our hearts; or household-voices ring,
Till the soul echoes with remember'd tones
Sweeter than music, in its tranced excess.
And all we are, oh! Night can this expound;
And self to self beyond all preachers show
In truthful plainness, making conscience start,
As sin on sin, which cov'ring daylight hides,
From the dim back-ground of our Being comes
To awe conception. Then, the future's doom!
Oh, how the spirit of a midnight-hush
To That, significance and shape imparts,
As depths of possibility untold
Open beneath Imagination's eye,
Fearful, and fathomless, and full of God!
'Tis then we soar ourselves beyond, and reach
The skirts and shadows of a higher State
Yet to be master'd. Or, may Thought presume
Thus to imagine, that as embryo life
Hath latent inlets ere the breath begins,
And dormant senses undeveloped powers,
So may our Spirit in the flesh perceive,
Faintly and feebly, some prelusive state,
Or, preconceptions of Hereafter feel
Which antedate a nobler life to come?

And did not Luther, at this dreaming hour,
His great heart yield to more than words depict?
Bathed in the ether of divinest calm
As there he mused, and from yon window'd tower
Greeted the heavens, with planets jewell'd bright?
A holy calm adown the harrow'd depths
Of his vex'd bosom, solemnly was breathed;
While feelings, tinged with supernat'ral awe,
But tender, round him cast their mingled spell.
Like starry gleams, in evanescent play,
Glances of truth upon his spirit dart
But vanish, ere perceiving sense could grasp
A bright suggestion for the soul to read.
Worldless the hour, but how intense the scene!
For never, since in Roman prison clank'd
The fetter'd Paul his honourable chain,
And haply, through his grated window watch'd
The arch of midnight, hath a finer Soul
Look'd o'er yon sky, than that which gazeth now!
Mute as a cloud, the time-worn Castle stands
Of Wartburg, through the glassy moonlight rear'd
In outline black, colossal and abrupt;
Beneath him, wrapt in motionless array,
Thuringa's forest spreads a gloomy wild
Soundless; and so becalm'd in dewy sleep
That e'en the leaflet, when some quiv'ring air
Throbs for a moment, like a lip in dreams
It vibrates, but no vocal murmur makes.
Creation, hush'd in her most holy trance,
Sinks on the soul like one vast sentiment;
From the high moon and melancholy stars
Around her, to the stirless grass beneath,
How mute is nature! how intensely fill'd
With life, with meaning, and with sentient awe!
As if the Earth were conscious that her God
Commanded silence, and she felt it rise
Deeper and deeper, from Creation's heart,
And all things binding with religious spell.

But now, the glory of this moonlit-scene
Melts through his being, till each spirit-chord
Thrills to the magic, with responsive tone.
Lo! the large tear-drop on his eyelid hangs
And quivers, like a half-unspoken prayer
Which on the balance of expression moves.
For God, and Truth, and Luther, now commune;
And Midnight hearkens, as the monk adores
The Christ Eternal, in His glory sphered
High o'er yon heavens, beyond conception raised,
And yet by soaring adoration reach'd
Which climbs that region where His radiance dwells,
And thrills the Saviour on His very throne!