Chimes

SWEET chimes! that in the loneliness of night

Salute the passing hour, and in the dark

And silent chambers of the household mark

The movements of the myriad orbs of light!

Through my closed eyelids, by the inner sight,

I see the constellations in the are

Of their great circles moving on, and hark!

I almost hear them singing in their flight.

Better than sleep it is to lie awake,

O’er-canopied by the vast starry dome

Of the immeasurable sky; to feel

The slumbering world sink under us, and make

Hardly an eddy,—a mere rush of foam

On the great sea beneath a sinking keel.