University of Virginia Library

All day in purple sat the sun
Amid his sumptuous train;
All night the pale moon, weird and wan,
Wandered through clouds and rain.
All day the winds, like laden wings,
Dropt odours rich and dim;
All night they shrieked through groaning boughs,
And caverns dark and grim.
All day the hills were crown'd with light,
Light laved their shining sides;
All night the torrents roared and dashed
Their black and sunless tides
Through thunderous glooms and avenues
Of ghastly ribbèd rocks,
Whose every pallid bone of flint
Shuddered beneath the shocks.
All day the sun-crowned forest thrilled,
And hummed with bee and bird;
The tiger and the lion roared
All night, and were not heard;
So fiercely shrieked the murderous storm,
So wailed the shrill winds thin;
With such an angry shout the heavens
Tumbled the darkness in.

My day is done, and, like a flower,
Folds all its sweetness up,
The wine of life is rudely dashed
Out of the golden cup;
And all the sunny hours, flower-wreathed,
That danced upon my floor,
Have taken all their garlands off,
And sing and dance no more;
My day is done, my sun has gone
Down to a weary bed;
The night comes shuddering down the heavens—
The night—with all its dead!

I look into my children's eyes,
I stroke their shining hair,
I kiss their little ruddy lips,
I see him budding there;
I go about my household tasks
Blindly, with eyes down-bent;
All night I ask my aching heart
How the long day was spent;
All day I wonder when the night
Will come to cool my brow;
Both night and day I thrust my arms
Through the barred dungeon—now.
I cannot rest. Some greedy want
Eats all the light away,
And on the pearlèd bosom of sleep
Gnaws at my heart alway
The daily heavens blaze like brass
Above my burning head;
And then the shuddering night comes down—
The night—with all its dead.

I see the first pale streak of dawn,
I see the giant limb
O' the sun stride o'er the bars of heaven
Out of his dungeon dim;
I see the shadows gather and leap
In their evening thunder-race;
I hear the night-winds howl and moan
Up in the moon's pale face.
No rest have I at night or morn,
For evermore I see
The red surge creep, the red waves leap
Up in a bloody sea;
And evermore a great fear comes
Swooning across my soul,
As I hear my husband's well-known name
In Death's dark muster-call.
Sometimes I hope; a little space
The sun shines through the rain;
But soon the gathering blackness comes,
And then I grope again
Through charnel-damps, by reeking walls,
With darkness overhead—
Touching the cold and crawling things
That batten on the dead.
O heavens! I would I only knew
If I a widow be:—
Sometimes I clutch my happy babes,
And cry—“My orphans three!”
They only smile up in my face;
They only clap their hands;
They fling their blossoms at my feet
And skim along the sands.
Sometimes, in self-deceit, I bring
His quiet evening meal
And listen—not a bird can fly,
Nor drowsy beetle wheel.
But I can hear it:—oh! I hear
The midnight midges hum,
And listen till the stars burn out,
But still he does not come!
I know he will not; yet no leaf
Nor blade of grass can stir,
But through my heart a wildering rush
Goes with a giddy whirr,
And dashes all the fevered blood
Up to my heated brain;
I cannot bear it; but I sit
And listen yet again.
Sometimes a lonely footstep comes
Along the crispèd grass;
I cry with joy, and through the door
Bewildered burst—alas!
It is to feel two shining eyes
Burn in upon my brain;
And go like serpents o'er my wounds
With poison to my pain:
I hoped for Purmar, but behold
The wild and wicked leer,
The deadly hate, the deadlier lust,
The fiend-smile of Ameer!
I shut the door, I wring my hands,
And something wrings my soul;
For, by the present drear I see
The golden past unroll;
But something sends a deadly smoke
O'er every sunny scene,
And all its crowned and regal joys
Shrivel to phantoms lean;
And all the present agony
Pales o'er its beaming brow:
I cannot, though I struggle, leap
Out of the seething now.
My day is done, my sun has gone
Down to a weary bed;
The night comes shuddering down the heavens—
The night—with all its dead!