Echoes of Spring :: :: University of Virginia Library

NIGHT.

Night on her sable pinions,
Came down at close of day:
She took her flight,
Through the gray twilight,
And banished the sun away.
Arrayed in her dark sable garments,
With her jet black curling hair,
She paused by the brook,
And a draught she took,
While a coolness filled the air.

She lay her hand on the reaper,
Who had tilled and sowed and reaped,
And bade him to lay,
From the toils of the day,
In a restful slumber, to sleep.
And going cross meadow and valley,
And seeing things quiet and still,
She paused by the rocks,
And summoned the fox;
And cried to the wild whip-poor-will.

The wild fox responded to the summon,
Which came by that of the spright,
And off in the dew,
Through the meadow he flew,
And was lost in the gloom of the night.
The whip-poor-will came from her hiding
Among the fallows and trees;
She warbled and sang,
Till her sweet song rang,
Like music afloat on the breeze.

Then night drew the dark sable curtain,
Which parted the light from the day;
That the sun should not mar,
She lit up each star,
With a gleam from the white milky-way.
All robed in her dark spectral garment,
Dripping with cold midnight-dew,
She sate in repose,
Till day-light arose;
Then away from the sun-light she flew.