Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
Night Scene
By Asa Moore Bolles (18021832)’T
The night-wind faintly sighs,—the dew
Just twinkles on the leaf, as shines
The starlight from its home of blue:
Around how calm! above how clear!
No murmur wakes an echo here.
The ripple on the shore expires
Without a sound,—its bosom glows,
Another sky with all its fires,
And glasses purely, deeply down
Night’s raven brow and starry crown.
Where wave and sky uniting sweep
In darker lines, a trembling ray
Comes gleaming o’er the mirrored deep;
Bright, bright amid the horizon’s gloom
It glows like hope above the tomb!
Amid the tempest’s gathering war
And hissing wrath, that Cresset’s light
Above the surge has beamed,—a star
To cheer the seaman’s eye, when dark
And dashing billows smote his bark.
And e’en yon snowy wild swan’s cry
Is hushed,—no echo from the hill,
And winds are sleeping in the sky,—
How pure that midnight beacon glows,
The brooding spirit of repose!
Deepening along night’s starry band!
Slow rising o’er the wood-crowned peaks,
Whose shadows sweep the distant strand,
Peere forth the queen of night,—but now
The crown is fading on her brow.
And joyless o’er the blue wave bending,
You scarce may mark on ocean’s brim
Yon white sail with the sea-mist blending;
Away!—how pale its light wing flies,
Like some pure spirit of the skies!
To heaven first rose my raptured eye;
And pictured forms in dreams of bliss
Came floating through the shadowy sky;
Gay dreams of youth!—they could not stay,
But fled like yon lone sail away!