A Summer Night
HER mist of primroses within her breast
Twilight hath folded up, and o’er the west,
Seeking remoter valleys long hath gone,
Not yet hath come her sister of the dawn.
Silence and coolness now the earth enfold,
Jewels of glittering green, long mists of gold,
Hazes of nebulous silver veil the height,
And shake in tremors through the shadowy night.
Heard through the stillness, as in whispered words,
The wandering God-guided wings of birds
Ruffle the dark. The little lives that lie
Deep hid in grass join in a long-drawn sigh
More softly still; and unheard through the blue
The falling of innumerable dew,
Lifts with grey fingers all the leaves that lay
Burned in the heat of the consuming day.
The lawns and lakes lie in this night of love,
Admitted to the majesty above.
Earth with the starry company hath part;
The waters hold all heaven within their heart,
And glimmer
Lifted to meet the angel lips of air.
The many homes of men shine near and far,
Peace-laden as the tender evening star,
The late home-coming folk anticipate
Their rest beyond the passing of the gate,
And tread with sleep-filled hearts and drowsy feet.
Oh, far away and wonderful and sweet
All this, all this. But far too many things
Obscuring, as a cloud of seraph wings
Blinding the seeker for the Lord behind,
I fall away in weariness of mind.
And think how far apart are I and you,
Beloved, from those spirit children who
Felt but one single Being long ago,
Whispering in gentleness and leaning low
Out of its majesty, as child to child.
I think upon it all with heart grown wild.
Hearing no voice, howe’er my spirit broods,
No whisper from the dense infinitudes,
This world of myriad things whose distance awes.
Ah me; how innocent our childhood was!
Related poetry:
- IN SUMMER How plain and height With dewdrops are bright! How pearls have crown’d The plants all around! How sighs the breeze Thro’ thicket and trees! How loudly in the sun’s clear rays The sweet birds carol forth their lays! But, ah! above, Where saw I my love, Within her room, Small, mantled in gloom, Enclosed around, […]...
- A Night-Rain in Summer Open the window, and let the air Freshly blow upon face and hair, And fill the room, as it fills the night, With the breath of the rain’s sweet might. Hark! the burthen, swift and prone! And how the odorous limes are blown! Stormy Love’s abroad, and keeps Hopeful coil for gentle sleeps. Not a […]...
- Between the Dusk of a Summer Night Between the dusk of a summer night And the dawn of a summer day, We caught at a mood as it passed in flight, And we bade it stoop and stay. And what with the dawn of night began With the dusk of day was done; For that is the way of woman and man, […]...
- Fantasy OVER all the dream-built margin, flushed with grey and hoary light, Glint the bubble planets tossing in the dead black sea of night. Immemorial face, how many faces look from out thy skies, Now with ghostly eyes of wonder rimmed around with rainbow dyes: Now the secrets of the future trail along the silent spheres: […]...
- A Summer Evening Churchyard, Lechlade, Gloucestershire THE wind has swept from the wide atmosphere Each vapour that obscured the sunset’s ray, And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair In duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day: Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men, Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen. They breathe their spells towards the departing day, Encompassing the […]...
- Good night, because we must Good night, because we must, How intricate the dust! I would go, to know! Oh incognito! Saucy, Saucy Seraph To elude me so! Father! they won’t tell me, Won’t you tell them to?...
- Night HEART-HIDDEN from the outer things I rose; The spirit woke anew in nightly birth Unto the vastness where forever glows The star-soul of the earth. There all alone in primal ecstasy, Within her depths where revels never tire, The olden Beauty shines: each thought of me Is veined through with its fire. And all my […]...
- A New Being I KNOW myself no more, my child, Since thou art come to me, Pity so tender and so wild Hath wrapped my thoughts of thee. These thoughts, a fiery gentle rain, Are from the Mother shed, Where many a broken heart hath lain And many a weeping head....
- Monday Night May 11th 1846 / Domestic Peace Why should such gloomy silence reign; And why is all the house so drear, When neither danger, sickness, pain, Nor death, nor want have entered here? We are as many as we were That other night, when all were gay, And full of hope, and free from care; Yet, is there something gone away. The […]...
- Summer Nights Lamoni, Iowa The factory siren tells workers time to go home Tells them the evening has begun. When living with the tall man Whom I didn’t love, I would wander The streets, dreaming of Italy. Trekking the handful of avenues With him, he would say look there Between pink cobblestones, There’s manure like mortar. The […]...
- The Seer OH, if my spirit may foretell Or earlier impart, It is because I always dwell With morning in my heart. I feel the keen embrace of light Ere dawning on the view It sprays the chilly fold of night With iridescent dew. The robe of dust around it cast Hides not the earth below, Its […]...
- Om FAINT grew the yellow buds of light Far flickering beyond the snows, As leaning o’er the shadowy white Morn glimmered like a pale primrose. Within an Indian vale below A child said “OM” with tender heart, Watching with loving eyes the glow In dayshine fade and night depart. The word which Brahma at his dawn […]...
- THE BEAUTIFUL NIGHT Now I leave this cottage lowly, Where my love hath made her home, And with silent footstep slowly Through the darksome forest roam, Luna breaks through oaks and bushes, Zephyr hastes her steps to meet, And the waving birch-tree blushes, Scattering round her incense sweet. Grateful are the cooling breezes Of this beauteous summer night, […]...
- Summer Dawn Pray but one prayer for me ‘twixt thy closed lips, Think but one thought of me up in the stars. The summer night waneth, the morning light slips, Faint and grey ‘twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the cloud-bars That are patiently waiting there for the dawn: Patient and colourless, though Heaven’s gold Waits […]...
- Adveniat Regnum Tuum Thy kingdom come! Yea, bid it come! But when Thy kingdom first began On earth, Thy kingdom was a home, A child, a woman, and a man. The child was in the midst thereof, O, blessed Jesus, holiest One! The centre and the fount of love Mary and Joseph’s little Son. Wherever on the earth […]...
- The Seraph and the Poet THE seraph sings before the manifest God-One, and in the burning of the Seven, And with the full life of consummate Heaving beneath him like a mother’s Warm with her first-born’s slumber in that The poet sings upon the earth grave-riven, Before the naughty world, soon self-forgiven For wronging him, and in the darkness prest […]...
- The Heart of Night When all the stars are sown Across the night-blue space, With the immense unknown, In silence face to face. We stand in speechless awe While Beauty marches by, And wonder at the Law Which wears such majesty. How small a thing is man In all that world-sown vast, That he should hope or plan Or […]...
- Mondnacht (Night Of The Moon) Es war, als hätt’ der Himmel Die Erde still geküsst Dass sie im Blütenschimmer Von ihm nun träumen müsst Die Luft ging durch die Felder Die Ähren wogten sacht Es rauschten leis die Wälder So sternklar war die Nacht Und meine Seele spannte Weit ihre Flügel aus Flog durch die stillen Lande Als flöge sie […]...
- Answer THE WARMTH of life is quenched with bitter frost; Upon the lonely road a child limps by Skirting the frozen pools: our way is lost: Our hearts sink utterly. But from the snow-patched moorland chill and drear, Lifting our eyes beyond the spirëd height, With white-fire lips apart the dawn breathes clear Its soundless hymn […]...
- Hymn (FROM THE GERMAN OF MARTIN LUTHER) O heart of mine! lift up thine eyes And see who in yon manger lies! Of perfect form, of face divine It is the Christ-child, heart of mine! O dearest, holiest Christ-child, spread Within this heart of mine thy bed; Then shall my breast forever be A chamber consecrate […]...
- When on a Summer's Morn When on a summer’s morn I wake, And open my two eyes, Out to the clear, born-singing rills My bird-like spirit flies. To hear the Blackbird, Cuckoo, Thrush, Or any bird in song; And common leaves that hum all day Without a throat or tongue. And when Time strikes the hour for sleep, Back in […]...
- Some say goodnight at night Some say goodnight at night I say goodnight by day Good-bye the Going utter me Goodnight, I still reply For parting, that is night, And presence, simply dawn Itself, the purple on the height Denominated morn....
- Litany to the Holy Spirit IN the hour of my distress, When temptations me oppress, And when I my sins confess, Sweet Spirit, comfort me! When I lie within my bed, Sick in heart and sick in head, And with doubts discomforted, Sweet Spirit, comfort me! When the house doth sigh and weep, And the world is drown’d in sleep, […]...
- A Watch In The Night Watchman, what of the night? – Storm and thunder and rain, Lights that waver and wane, Leaving the watchfires unlit. Only the balefires are bright, And the flash of the lamps now and then From a palace where spoilers sit, Trampling the children of men. Prophet, what of the night? – I stand by the […]...
- Hymn to the Night I heard the trailing garments of the Night Sweep through her marble halls! I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light From the celestial walls! I felt her presence, by its spell of might, Stoop o’er me from above; The calm, majestic presence of the Night, As of the one I love. I heard […]...
- 'Tis my first night beneath the Sun ‘Tis my first night beneath the Sun If I should spend it here Above him is too low a height For his Barometer Who Airs of expectation breathes And takes the Wind at prime But Distance his Delights confides To those who visit him...
- Night And Day The innocent, sweet Day is dead. Dark Night hath slain her in her bed. O, Moors are as fierce to kill as to wed! Put out the light, said he. A sweeter light than ever rayed From star of heaven or eye of maid Has vanished in the unknown Shade. She’s dead, she’s dead, said […]...
- To Night Swiftly walk over the western wave, Spirit of Night! Out of the misty eastern cave Where, all the long and lone daylight, Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, Which make thee terrible and dear, Swift be thy flight! Wrap thy form in a mantle grey, Star-inwrought! Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day, […]...
- The Poor Children Take heed of this small child of earth; He is great; he hath in him God most high. Children before their fleshly birth Are lights alive in the blue sky. In our light bitter world of wrong They come; God gives us them awhile. His speech is in their stammering tongue, And his forgiveness in […]...
- Night SWIFTLY walk o’er the western wave, Spirit of Night! Out of the misty eastern cave, Where, all the long and lone daylight, Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear Which make thee terrible and dear, Swift be thy flight! Wrap thy form in a mantle grey, Star-inwrought! Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day; […]...
- His Litany to the Holy Spirit In the hour of my distress, When temptations me oppress, And when I my sins confess, Sweet Spirit comfort me! When I lie within my bed, Sick in heart, and sick in head, And with doubts discomforted, Sweet Spirit comfort me! When the house doth sigh and weep, And the world is drown’d in sleep, […]...
- Voices Of the Night PRELUDE. Pleasant it was, when woods were green, And winds were soft and low, To lie amid some sylvan scene, Where, the long drooping boughs between Shadows dark and sunlight sheen Alternate come and go; Or where the denser grove receives No sunlight from above But the dark foliage interweaves In one unbroken roof of […]...
- The Oblation Ask nothing more of me, sweet; All I can give you I give. Heart of my heart, were it more, More would be laid at your feet: Love that should help you to live, Song that should spur you to soar. All things were nothing to give Once to have sense of you more, Touch […]...
- The Virgin Mother WHO is that goddess to whom men should pray, But her from whom their hearts have turned away, Out of whose virgin being they were born, Whose mother nature they have named with scorn Calling its holy substance common clay. Yet from this so despised earth was made The milky whiteness of those queens who […]...
- Sleeping Out: Full Moon They sleep within. . . . I cower to the earth, I waking, I only. High and cold thou dreamest, O queen, high-dreaming and lonely. We have slept too long, who can hardly win The white one flame, and the night-long crying; The viewless passers; the world’s low sighing With desire, with yearning, To the […]...
- Genesis In the outer world that was before this earth, That was before all shape or space was born, Before the blind first hour of time had birth, Before night knew the moonlight or the morn; Yea, before any world had any light, Or anything called God or man drew breath, Slowly the strong sides of […]...
- My Indian Summer Here in the Autumn of my days My life is mellowed in a haze. Unpleasant sights are none to clear, Discordant sounds I hardly hear. Infirmities like buffers soft Sustain me tranquilly aloft. I’m deaf to duffers, blind to bores, Peace seems to percolate my pores. I fold my hands, keep quiet mind, In dogs […]...
- The Nurse Such innocent companionship Is hers, whether she wake or sleep, ‘Tis scarcely strange her face should wear The young child’s grave and innocent air. All the night long she hath by her The quiet breathing, the soft stir, Nor knows how in that tender place The children’s angels veil the face. She wakes at dawn […]...
- By Night when Others Soundly Slept . By night when others soundly slept And hath at once both ease and Rest, My waking eyes were open kept And so to lie I found it best. . I sought him whom my Soul did Love, With tears I sought him earnestly. He bow’d his ear down from Above. In vain I did […]...
- Last Night As I Was Sleeping Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt-marvelous error!- That a spring was breaking Out in my heart. I said: Along which secret aqueduct, Oh water, are you coming to me, Water of a new life That I have never drunk? Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt-marvelous error!- That I had a beehive […]...