European Elegies/Winter/Night
32.NIGHT
The day has gone; and with the nightThe gathering gloom confounds the eye;With all its torches set alightThe moon is marching up the sky.In dusk I sit, forsaken quite,No loving heart, no friend is by—Only a song of far delightComes throbbing through my memory.
Who's there? What face peers through the leaves?Who floats before me but to fade?What white-clad figure flits and weavesA haunting horror through the shade?—'Tis but the night my eyes deceives,And yet my spirit is afraid.
From the Finnish of Eino Leino.