Page:Poems Craik.djvu/61

Would startle him as if it were a ghost,—
And like a ghost, a weary wandering ghost,
I roam and roam, and shiver through the dark
That will not hide me. O for but one hour,
One blessed hour of warm and dewy night,
To wrap me like a pall—with not an eye
In earth or heaven to pierce the black serene.
Night, call ye this? No night; no dark—no rest—
A moon-ray sweeps down sudden from the sky,
And smites the moor—
And smites the moor—Is thou, accursed Thing,
Broad, pallid, like a great woe looming out—
Out of its long-sealed grave, to fill all earth
With its dead, ghastly smile? Art there again,
Round, perfect, large, as when we buried thee,
I and the kindly clouds that heard my prayers?
I '11 sit me down and meet thee face to face,
Mine enemy!—Why didst thou rise upon
My world—my innocent world, to make me mad?
Wherefore shine forth, a tiny tremulous curve
Hung out in the gray sunset beauteously,
To tempt mine eyes—then nightly to increase
Slow orbing, till thy full, blank, pitiless stare
Hunts me across the world?
Hunts me across the world?No rest—no dark.
Hour after hour that passionless bright face
Climbs up the desolate blue. I will press down