The Poems of Digby Mackworth Dolben :: :: University of Virginia Library

Methought the sun in terror made his bed,
The gentle stars in angry lightning fell,
And shuddering winds thro' all the woodland fled,
Pulling in every tree a passing bell.
That night, on all the glory and the grace
There rolled a numbing mist, and wrapped from sight
The greening fields of my delightsome land,
Mildewing every tender bud to blight,—

As the grey change o'erspreads a dying face—
Till, corpse-like, stretched beneath a pall of skies,
Earth stared at heaven with open sightless eyes;
Then in the hush went forth the soul of life,
Drawn through the darkness by a gleaming hand:
The strength of agony awoke, and strove
Awhile for mastery to hold it back,
But comet-like, beyond the laws of love,
Branding the blackness with a fiery track
It passed to space; and, wearied of the strife,
In the great after calm, I passed to sleep.

Did they not call ambrosial the night
And holy once? when (from the feet of God
Set on the height where circles round and full
The rainbow of perfection) starry troops
Came floating, aureoled in dreamy light,
And gracious dews distilling, as they trod
The poppied plains of slumber.—Ah too dull
My sense, such visions for my aid to call,
My sleep too dry with fever, for the fall
Of those strange dews, which quicken withered hopes.