Classic Poem

Winter Nocturne

With me is revelry and light,
A wind-blown world of circling rink;
With me is music and the clink
Of frosty steel on crackling ice;
With me the sweet seductive sight
Of gliding figures that entice
The watcher to pursue their flight
Through mazy whirls, alertly tense
To steal swift passage left and right,
All thought o'erwhelmed in giddy sense.
With me is revelry and light, —
With thee, the silence and the night.

Yet oh! could I be with you, dear,
In your rose-garden, wet with dew,
To pluck one perfect bud for you,
Or where the sands at Miramar
In starlit silence glimmer clear,
Hold converse of the near and far, —
No longer would I tarry here
In these mad gaieties; I'd fly,
As from a desert lone and drear,
To that calm pleasure, chaste, and high,
Where souls commune in holy fear
That God should let them draw so near.English