Charles Heavysege (1816–1876)

’TIS solemn darkness; the sublime of shade;

Night by no stars nor rising moon relieved;

The awful blank of nothingness arrayed,

O’er which my eyeballs roll in vain, deceived.

Upward, around, and downward I explore,

E’en to the frontiers of the ebon air,

But cannot, though I strive, discover more

Than what seems one huge cavern of despair.

O Night, art thou so grim, when black and bare

Of moonbeams, and no cloudlets to adorn?

Like a nude Ethiop ’twixt two houris fair

Thou standest between the evening and the morn.

I took thee for an angel, but have wooed

A cacodaemon in mine ignorant mood.