University of Virginia Library

Oh quickly rise,
Thou lovely and surpassing moon!
And look into mine eyes,
Ere sober night too swiftly hies;
Grant me this boon.
Here I have kept,
Watching for thy delaying light,
(While others lay and slept,)
As I at other times have wept,
And called daylight.
Yea, I have lain,
And eastward turned my anxious gaze—
But all thus far in vain;
Not yet thy brilliant silver rain
Hath shot its rays.
The evening star
Chid me to go unto my bed—
Saying, `she 's yet afar,
And hours will pass, or ere her car
Be upward sped.'

And she hath set
Behind the western hills; and thou
Hast not uprisen as yet,
And trampled with thy silver feet
The anarch brow,
That doth uplift
Upon the far and eastern marge
Its high and snowy drift,
The elements' eternal gift—
The constant targe
At which are sped
And shivered all thine arrow-gleams—
By which, likewise, are fed,
And sent along their rocky bed,
The mountain streams.
Ah! here she comes!
The stars, her ministers, grow pale,
As upward from gray glooms,
The queen of majesty illumes
Rock, hill, and dale.
Thy light is pure
As love of children, gentle moon!
Sorrow, it well can cure,
And from its winter sadness lure
The heart most lone.
Now I can sleep,
If thou wilt but vouchsafe to shine
From thy untrodden deep,
And pleasantly mine eye-lids steep
In light divine.
The stars that peer
Behind their dimness at thine eye,
And humbly sit and steer
Their orbal boats around thy sphere,
Love not as I.
Adieu, adieu!
For now my lids begin to droop,
And from thy kingdom blue,
Sleep's gentle and bewitching dew
Doth kindly stoop.

So now, good even!
My worthless hymn of praise is sung;
In truth my heart is given,
O silver nautilus of heaven!
Upon my tongue.