Classic Poem

Night's curtains are falling
Around her wide dome,
And mother-birds calling
Young wanderers home.

The humble-bee singing
Comes out of the rose,
And thro' the wood ringing
His curfew, he goes.

No pipe on the mountain,
No step in the vale,
The moon in the fountain
Looks silent and pale:

“Hush! hush!—the flood's daughter
She visits by night,
Begins 'neath the water
To mourn with delight.”

“O no! 'tis the wild-flowers
Sighing for morn,
When the sun their green bowers
With gold shall adorn.”

“Yon grove of sweet rushes,
'Tis they who complain!
As the wind in soft flushes
Comes o'er them again.”

“Sweet sound!—O far sweeter
Than these could have birth;
Such notes are far meeter
For heaven than earth!”

“Say, whence are those numbers?
Why waken they, when
Even sorrow hath slumbers?”—
Look down in the glen:

The moon on the ripples
That wander below,
With her tender lip tipples
The waves as they flow:

There's a tree bending over
The roar of the stream,
Where its bright sparkles hover
Like rain in the beam:

That bower of roses,
That sweet-brier tree,
A Minstrel encloses
Whom sight may not see.

“Come down to the valley!
Come onward a-pace!
This willow-walled alley
Leads up to the place!”

She's gone!—Ah! unthinking!—
“What's here?—Is it blood,
The leaves redly-inking
As deep as the bud?”

Know you not the wild story?—
Our villagers tell,
That this bird hath such glory
In wailing so well,

To deepen her sadness
Of ecstasy born,
In fine and fond madness
She leans on a thorn!