The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse
NightCharles Heavysege (18161876)
’T
Night by no stars nor rising moon relieved;
The awful blank of nothingness arrayed,
O’er which my eyeballs roll in vain, deceived.
Upward, around, and downward I explore,
E’en to the frontiers of the ebon air,
But cannot, though I strive, discover more
Than what seems one huge cavern of despair.
O Night, art thou so grim, when black and bare
Of moonbeams, and no cloudlets to adorn?
Like a nude Ethiop ’twixt two houris fair
Thou standest between the evening and the morn.
I took thee for an angel, but have wooed
A cacodaemon in mine ignorant mood.