University of Virginia Library

Night, beloved night!
She is coming—she soon will come;
Slowly is paling the dying light,
Twilight has lost its bloom,
And a serious hush steals silently
Over the shadowy Earth,—
While faint in the delicate air on high
The first new star has birth.

Against the twilight, their shoulders bare,
The mountains are turning as to sleep;
And one by one from their chambers deep,
Where from the peering search they hid
Of the day's rude gaze and opened lid,
A myriad worlds come forth.

The riotous day is gone
With his cymbals clashing, his bright spears flashing,
His tumult and rout, his Bacchanal's shout,
His gladness and madness, and laughter and raving,
His banners and thyrsi and coronals waving;
And his chorus and dances and singing are done,—
The noisy array has hurried away
And vanished below the horizon's rim
Into worlds beyond,—and his gonfalons gay
Of sunset glories are dim and grey,
And have all forgotten him—
For night, with its shadowy silent presence,
Is stealing on,
And under its spell so calm and serious
The wondering world stands still,
And a feeling—vague, intense, mysterious—
Is brooding o'er valley and hill.

The stars in their blue unfathomed tomb
Gleam far and bright,—
They are waiting the coming of the moon,
The Regent of the Night.
Nor long they await—for look—serene
Above the hills revealed,
Large and majestic in her mien,
Into the clear, expectant sky
She lifts her gleaming shield—
And with a pensive peaceful grace
Takes queenlike there her silent place,
And looks o'er all the enchanted world
With calm pathetic face.
All own her gentle influence,
So tender, so intense;
And over all a breath of prayer
Floats like a feeling through the air,
And soothes the soul and sense.

Along the river's course the slow mists cling,
As murmuring on it swells.
In the dark grass a myriad grilli ring
Their chimes of tiny bells.
From rugged mountain-steeps that dark and bare
Shrouded in shadow dream,
Voices of white cascades, whose veils out-stream
And hang upon the air,
Chant to the Night their praises as they go
To join the torrent hurrying hoarse below
O'er its gray boulders tossed.
The soft wind whispering sings its mountain song
As slow it drives the low white clouds along,
Or murmurs through the black platoons of pines,
Whose serried ranks together push
Their tall uplifted spears, and rush
Up the sheer sides of Alps and Apennines,—
Or tremulous breathes o'er many a peaceful slope
Of gracious Italy,
Where in festoons the swaying vineyards droop,
And the gray olives up the hillsides troop—
A ghostly company,
Pallid and faint, as they had only known
The moon for friend—and in its light had grown.

A dream the vales and hills and meadows haunts,—
Earth sleeping turns and sighs,—the ocean pants,
And weary, flings itself upon the breast
Of the broad beach, scarce knowing what it wants,
Stirred by a strange unrest;
The sky's deep dome is filled with mysteries dim
And tremulous throbs,—the swift and wheeling spheres
With music thrill, too fine for human ears,
And Nature, with its myriad voices, chants
To thee its faint night hymn.

Nor Nature only,—every living thing
Thy influence feels, and all of harsh and rude,
Touched by thy sweet and gentle visiting,
Grows peaceful and subdued.
In the dark woods the hidden nightingale,
With rapturous trills, and sudden passion-throbs,
And liquid bursts, and low recurrent sobs,
Repeats his love-lorn tale.
The plaintive cry of the sad whippoorwill
Is heard along the hill.
The leathern bat wheels round in noiseless flight
Across the glimmering and uncertain light,—
And mournfully afar the feathery owl
Hoots in the ear of night.
From many a pond, where on its green-paved floor
Of tessellated leaves the lily sleeps,
While the pale willow drooping o'er it weeps,
His guttural bass the frog sings o'er and o'er.
From out the tall dark silhouetted tower,
At intervals, with deep and solemn stroke,
The church bells strike the quarters and the hour.
There comes a bleating from the folded flock,
A tinkle of faint bells,—
From the dim fields the voice of country folk,
Talking and laughing, swells;
And now and then the bay
Of some enchanted watch-dog far away,
That feels night's influence, and cannot say
What stirs him so,
Is heard lamenting,—or some wakened cock
Crows out a drowsy crow.
But all these sounds and voices seem
To melt away into the tender dream
That haunts the air,
And soothe the silence which were else too deep
For heart to bear.

All sleep! The tired world sleeps!
A quiet infinite
The soul of man and nature steeps,
And smooths the brow of night.
The weary ox lays off his yoke,—
The dog hunts in his dream alone,—
The woodman wields no more his stroke,—
The beggar, 'neath his ragged cloak,
On the cold pavement thrown,
No longer heeds the world's dark frown,
No longer hungers, racked with pains,
But roams along Elysian plains
And wears a monarch's crown.
A myriad mortals lay their head
Upon oblivion's poppied bed,
By peaceful slumber blest,
And all day's busy toils and cares,
And all the hard world's strain and stress,
And all its tortuous snarls and snares
Are lifted from their breast,—
As lapped in calm unconsciousness
They sleep—they rest.

But Love awakes: O silent moon,
Upon how many a happy pair
That breathe this silvery tranquil air,
Serene thou lookest down!
As wandering, blest by Life's best boon,
Through many a lane and shadowy grove
They lingering talk—or pausing dream,
And strive to tell their love;
While following them, now bright now dim,
The listening stars above
Through the o'erhanging tree-tops swim
And with them pause—or move.
Their bliss intense, their thrill of sense
That words can never half express,
Thou seest as they wander on,—
His clasping arm around her thrown,
She trembling in his fond caress,—
And all the air is still to hear,
And all the heavens above,
The sweet low broken utterances,
The silences of Love.
The nightingale that knows to sing
Love's passion and Love's pain,
Cries Love—Love—Love—interpreting
Their thrill of heart and brain.

And sorrow wakes—and in despair
Looks up, O night, to thee
And wails—“Oh where are they, oh where,
Whom Death hath torn from me?
Speak—speak, O night—O heaven, declare
From thine infinity.”
And thou—what answerest thou, O night,
O boundless tremulous air,
O moon, O stars—to that wild cry,
To that impassioned prayer?
Nothing! In calm serenity,
Unmoved thou standest there,
Deaf—silent—cold and pitiless
To all we have to bear.
No! no! the tears of passion past,
Thou givest us thy boon at last.
Thou sayest—“Come to me and weep;”—
Thou givest thy beloved sleep;
Thou summonest again the form
That death hath snatched away,
The glad lost voice, the body warm,
The animate dear clay,
The dream at least of all that was
Denied to us by day.

O Night of grand repose!
O silent serious Night!
Beside thy pathos infinite
How vain are Daylight's shows!
Thine is the grand dim realm of dream,
Thine the mysterious power whose spell
Leads Fancy on beyond the extreme
Of this world's possible.
Thine the soft touch that charms the waking sense,
And woos the troubled soul to confidence.
To thee our secret woes we tell,
To thee our inmost being bare,
With thee our deepest feelings share,
Mother divine, ineffable.
Our hopes, our loves, that in the pride
Of busy daylight are repressed—
Our doubts, remorses, hidden fears,
That gnaw within the breast;
To thee, great mother, we confide
And on thy bosom shed our tears,
As thy great arms thou openest wide
To give us rest.

O Night—a secret prophecy
Thou whisperest beneath thy breath
Of that vast dim infinity,
Where broods the silent shadow—Death.
Listening I seem to hear thee say,—
“As I from out the body steal
For few brief hours the soul away,
My passing dream-world to reveal;
So my dark Brother, when your eyes
He in his endless sleep shall close,
Shall bear you—far beyond the woes
Of this short life—to the repose
Of an eternal Paradise.”