University of Virginia Library


64

“LA NOTTE”

Is it night? And sits night at your pillow?
Sits darkness about you like death?
Rolls darkness above like a billow,
As drowning men catch in their breath?
Is it night, and deep night of dark errors,
Of crosses, of pitfalls and bars?
Then lift up your face from your terrors,
For heaven alone holds the stars!
Lo! shaggy beard shepherds, the fastness—
Lorn, desolate Syrian sod;
The darkness, the midnight, the vastness—
That vast, solemn night bore a God!
The night brought us God; and the Savior
Lay down in a cradle to rest;
A sweet cherub Babe in behavior,
So that all baby-world might be blest.