University of Virginia Library

[Dark Night! thou herald of the musing hour]

Dark Night! thou herald of the musing hour,
Thou oft times soother to the sleepless mind;
Descend, and with thy dreary hush impart
To wakeful spirits their own pensive gloom;
For thou art dear to me—a solemn scene,
When the soul's grasp can stretch in wide expanse,
Seizing the fitful forms of ideal dreams;
And by fancy's power, into substance mould
The airy images which thought creates.
How strange is thought! how wide its grappling might!
How boundless is the magic of its strength!
What giant force, when mem'ry's soul is warm,
Can firm restrain its rude voluptuous course,
And stop the torrent of its mighty flood?
Oh! more than arrogance that presumes to quell
Each rising billow that swells to vastness,
Majestic in the current of the mind.
Thought! thou art all I have to call mine own!
All that treachery's spoiling hands have left
Me now to play my reeking griefs away,
Or lose them in the wiles of pensiveness;
Borne on thy mystic wings I wander far,
And taste the secret luxuries of woe.
E'en now remembrance bids me think of her,
That startles me as if a spectre rose—
Say not that youthful prime's unmeet to love.
The soul, when buoyant, feels the keenest wound!
Youth too soon, alas! each fond impression knows,
And takes the meteor's glimpse, as if 'twould last:
My love was blasted like th' unripen'd fruit
Whose fair blossom's kill'd by the mildew's blight,
While nought remains except a naked stem!
I said I loved—oh! love's a paltry word
To paint the adoration of the heart!
The ceaseless worship of each purer sense;
The warm embrace of all that could endear;
The wasting of each faculty that lives;
I had no thought but such as went to her,
No wish, save what was breath'd for her own peace.
Alas! that love no longer now exists,
Save when unsteady fancy soars in flight,
And thus decoys my heart with dalliant guile.
The fondest hopes of former days are gone!
No shatter'd wreck remains to warm my heart,
For misery's hollow eye to gaze upon!
Where she, whose smile of innocence did beam,
Far purer than the pearly shine of heav'n?
Whose soft eye was dumb eloquence to me,
Whose voice had more than music melody—
Not pluck'd from out the busy hum of world,
And the fairy flower-strew'd scenes of youth,
Stretch'd in the grove's cold dreariness she lies,
But lives with dastard soul to laugh at one,
Whose greatest weakness was his love too pure!
More cheerless than keen winter's icy looks
Are her's to me—fell mockery and taunt,
Deceitful maid! irresolute and weak,
Poor piteous sample of an inconstant sex—
Where the firmness of thy repeated boast?
How tottering the mind that dared not stem
The vile attack of envy and deceit!
Oh! could I tear yon sun from out the skies,
And split the quiv'ring beams from his bright orb,
I'd plant each tinted ray around my heart,
That thou might'st clearly see 'twas not untrue;
That not a particle did there infest,
Or taint the pureness of its holy love.
But thou wert false—thy smile was made to please,
And after to deceive with its sweet archness;
With angel voice thou knew'st to plead thy tale—
And steal affection from thy listner's heart—
I'll not upbraid—go, ask thy inner self
When nought but heav'n is witness to thy sighs,
While silent conscience speaks the cause of truth—