THE TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.
ONE.
The spell is perfect! every charm of night
Has worked its deep enchantment on the world:
Slumber, and silence, and the mystic light
Of the white, ghostly moon; the bat has furled
Its flabby wing beneath some yew-tree shade;
The owl is silent in its dark retreat;
The phantoms of the restless dead are laid,
And ouphes and fairies stay their tiny feet:
Each wandering spirit yields it to the spell,
And for one charméd hour the world sleeps well.
TWO.
Down sinks the moon, and up the tempest rises,
And each meets each on the horizon's verge;
The hurrying darkness the late moon surprises,
And maddened winds the moaning forests scourge.
Lingers the red moon yet a little longer,
Her thin horns piercing through the sable clouds,
Then disappears—when louder grown and stronger,
The tempest shrieks, and bursting through its shrouds
Hurls down its thunderbolts, looses its lightning,
Groans through the woodlands, and howls through the waves,
Air-spirits gladd'ning, and earth-spirits fright'ning,
Wildly carousing it revels and raves.
THREE.
The spirits of the storm have spent their wrath,
The sea but murmurs, and the forests sigh;
The clouds are folded back, and the bright path
That the stars take is seen upon the sky.
So almost have they reached their nightly goal;
And not far hence their journey will be done,
And they have passed away from heaven's scroll,
Or lost themselves in the absorbing sun.
