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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Oft in the Stilly Night (from National Airs)

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti

Thomas Moore (1779–1852)

Oft in the Stilly Night (from National Airs)

OFT, in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber’s chain has bound me,

Fond Memory brings the light

Of other days around me;

The smiles, the tears,

Of boyhood’s years,

The words of love then spoken;

The eyes that shone,

Now dimm’d and gone,

The cheerful hearts now broken!

Thus, in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber’s chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

When I remember all

The friends, so link’d together,

I’ve seen around me fall,

Like leaves in wintry weather;

I feel like one

Who treads alone

Some banquet-hall deserted,

Whose lights are fled,

Whose garlands dead,

And all but he departed!

Thus, in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber’s chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.