Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber (1814–1890)

’NEATH the mild beauty of a summer night,

I leave my chamber to enjoy the air,—

To feel its eddies circling in my hair,

And feel it kiss my brow in wild delight.

The starry gems bestud the concave high;

O blessed Stars! on you I fix my eye,

And long for your bright spheres to take my flight.

Beneath o’erlacing elms, shut out from sight,

I stray, my head reclined upon my breast,—

My thoughts away, away amid the blest,—

The world forgot, in my abstractions, quite.

Hark! there ’s a sound of earth, a note of bliss,—

A most ecstatic smack, I wis,—

Borne to my ear from darkness, comes a lover’s kiss!