Julia Alpinula :: :: University of Virginia Library

To thoughts of lightest kind, joy lends his ray,
And paints the morrow brighter than to day;
Though not by day, with Andron, can she steal
The bliss to speak, the paradise to feel,
To watch with him the clouds that flit and flee,
The gliding ships, the sunsets o'er the sea,
And birds of calm that dip their azure wings
In ocean, loveliest of a thousand things,—
Yet can she soothe the darkness of his cell,
With glad inventions that shall please as well.
Romantic harp, and legendary song,
Shall make his hours of absence seem less long;
And the resounding voice of one so dear,
Falling like seraph's hymns upon his ear,
Shall soothe each wild anxiety, and still
The many thoughts that blindly war with will.
The night is all their own; and O, the night
Has charms—the hours in their so silent flight,
Each stamped with lovelier feeling than the last,
And each more prized in passing to the past.
The faint white flush long lingering in the west,
The stars revolving, and all earth at rest

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Save two fond souls, the only ones which find
Their Eden in this vigil of the mind:—
The all-transfusing eye, the placid brow,
The whispering undertone, the murmured vow,
The midnight watch o'er weariness asleep,
The chronicles which they together keep,
The clouds that round the moon in shadow lay,
The yellow moonshine brightening all the bay,
Or, yet more stirring to a heroine's soul,
The thunders in their repercussive roll,
The storm, the wind, the lightning, and the sweep
Of the gigantic waters of the deep.