English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
775. Hymn to the Night
[Greek]Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!
Stoop o’er me from above;
The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
As of the one I love.
The manifold, soft chimes,
That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,
Like some old poet’s rhymes.
My spirit drank repose;
The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,—
From those deep cisterns flows.
What man has borne before!
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,
And they complain no more.
Descend with broad-winged flight,
The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,
The best-beloved Night!