Hark how the tremulous night-wind is passing in joy-laden sighs;
Soft through my window it comes, like the fanning of pinions angelic,
   Whispering to cease from myself, and look out on the infinite skies.

Out on the orb-studded night, and the crescent effulgence of Dian;
   Out on the far-gleaming star-dust that marks where the angels have trod;
Out on the gem-pointed Cross, and the glittering pomp of Orion,
   Flaming in measureless azure, the coronal jewels of God;

Swiftly walk o'er the western wave,
   Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave,--
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear
Which make thee terrible and dear,--
   Swift be thy flight!

Wrap thy form in a mantle grey,
   Star-inwrought!
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;
Kiss her until she be wearied out.
Then wander o'er city and sea and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand--
   Come, long-sought!

When I arose and saw the dawn,

A pale enchanted moon is sinking low
Behind the dunes that fringe the shadowy lea,
And there is haunted starlight on the flow
Of immemorial sea.

I am alone and need no more pretend
Laughter or smile to hide a hungry heart;
I walk with solitude as with a friend
Enfolded and apart.

We tread an eerie road across the moor
Where shadows weave upon their ghostly looms,
And winds sing an old lyric that might lure
Sad queens from ancient tombs.

I am a sister to the loveliness
Of cool far hill and long-remembered shore,

The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies,
When love is done.

He cried out through the night:
"Where is the light?
Shall nevermore
Open Heaven's door?
Oh, I am left
Lonely, bereft!"
He cried out through the night:
It spread vaguely white,
With its ghost of a moon
Above the dark swoon
Of the earth lying chill,
Breathless, grave still.
He cried out through the night:
His voice in its might
Rang forth far and far,
And then like a star
Dwindled from sense
In the Immense.
He cried out through the night:
No answering light,
No syllabled sound;

I am Night: I bring again
Hope of pleasure, rest from pain:
Thoughts unsaid 'twixt Life and Death
My fruitful silence quickeneth.

The night is young yet; an enchanted night
In early summer: calm and darkly bright.

I love the Night, and every little breeze
She brings, to soothe the sleep of dreaming trees.

Hearst thou the Voices? Sough! Susurrus!— Hark!
’Tis Mother Nature whispering in the dark!

Burden of cities, mad turmoil of men,
That vex the daylight—she forgets them then.

Her breasts are bare; Grief gains from them surcease:
She gives her restless sons the milk of Peace.

To sleep she lulls them—drawn from thoughts of pelf—

I

Within the town of Buffalo
Are prosy men with leaden eyes.
Like ants they worry to and fro,
(Important men, in Buffalo.)
But only twenty miles away
A deathless glory is at play:
Niagara, Niagara.

The women buy their lace and cry: —
"O such a delicate design,"
And over ostrich feathers sigh,
By counters there, in Buffalo.
The children haunt the trinket shops,
They buy false-faces, bells, and tops,
Forgetting great Niagara.

Within the town of Buffalo
Are stores with garnets, sapphires, pearls,

Today, while yet the rumour filled the street,
I left your faces troubled with the thought
Of brothers to a bodeful fury wrought;
And, hurrying past a thousand twinkling feet,
With clouded heart a solitude I sought,
The haunt of many leaves--a cool retreat--
And mused of strife with untold interest fraught;
Of homes; of bloody battles to be fought;
Nor stirred till night rose stormy, and the deep
Moaned like some monster shaken in its sleep.
Then doleful sounds came up from lea and lynn
Where rain fell heavy on the gloomy deep,

GOD girt her about with the surges
And winds of the masterless deep,
Whose tumult uprouses and urges
Quick billows to sparkle and leap;
He filled from the life of their motion
Her nostrils with breath of the sea,
And gave her afar in the ocean
A citadel free.

Her never the fever-mist shrouding,
Nor drought of the desert may blight,
Nor pall of dun smoke overclouding
Vast cities of clamorous night,
But the voice of abundance of waters,