Classic Poem

In any other land, now,
Are there nights like these?
The white moon wanders up
Among the palm-trees;
And hardly any wind falls

Upon the purple seas.

More gold than Cortes, even,
Touched in any dream
Sank half-an-hour ago
Deep in the Gulf Stream:


Like fine dust of it
The few clouds seem.

And hark! from the Convent
One slow bell:
There’s an old garden there,—


Ah! if I could tell
Half how sweet the jazmin
And diamela smell.

I think that I am glad, here,
And deem the moment good.


And yet—there’s the North Star!...
As if one ever could
Forget the gray ways Night comes in
Now, in the old wood.