Memorials of Theophilus Trinal, Student :: :: University of Virginia Library

How dreamily we walk, at night,
Home from a music sweet!
A ghostly sound the foot arouses,
As you pass the shadowy houses—
There's no one in the street;
But, perhaps, a woman all alone,
The music of whose life is done.

From some window shines a light;
Is there one who sleeps,
While a sister or a mother,
Or a father or a brother,
Tender watching keeps;
And sweet hope, as the hours pass by,
Makes low and distant melody?

In that room where shadows move,
A mother new may be;
While he who is a father made,
With feeling very strange and glad,
His little one may see:

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And now are baby, man, and wife,
The three-part harmony of life.

Farther on, from high above,
A student's lamp will beam;
Night-silence is, as if a wind,
Filling the organ of his mind;
And, like music in a dream,
With many a change of stop and key,
Thought advances wanderingly.

Wakeful, within their silent rooms,
Some still may musing lie;
And in this middle hush of night,
Perhaps a thought of old delight
Jars the harp of memory;
And startles every slumbering string,
Sad sounds confused awakening.

But round you, in the darken'd rooms,
Are families at rest;
Gradual and gentle came repose,
Silently deepening, like the snows;
And now in many a breast
Rules dream-power, with musician's skill,
Guiding the spirit as he will.

The young man of the maiden dreams,
The maiden dreams of man;
Her treble airiness and grace,
His powerful supporting bass,
Complete each other can:
Each heart has its peculiar tone,
But none were meant to sound alone.

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Your house now in the lamp-shine gleams,
And, entering, you soon
With head upon your pillow are,
Where, scarcely listening, you hear
Thought faintly hum its tune;
Like mother who sings child asleep,
Singing on to make the slumber deep.