NINE.
New beauty adds itself unto the night
Sweet music sighs on every wave of air;
The heavens are growing more intensely bright,
And the clear atmosphere more purely fair.
The weary student throws his book aside—
The night is all too glorious to be spent
In gaining wisdom from the musty guide
O'er which his cramped and toilsome mind has bent.
He must go forth—all others have gone forth—
To learn a lesson from heaven's shining page;
One hour of its bright teaching must be worth
The soulless study of a tedious age.
The sound of voices, and the fitful sigh
Among the branches of the "low south wind,"
And the calm, radiant beauty of the sky,
Have a rare charm to his o'er-toiling mind;
And he will wander out, and wander on,
Forgetful of his books, himself, the world—
So has his spirit into ether flown,
When in free air her unbound wings unfurled.
When the gay groups of idlers all are gone,
He with the grand, fair night will be alone.
TEN.
The faltering farewell has been said,
The lover from his love has parted;
And listening to his distant tread,
She dreams, half happy, half sad-hearted,
Then sighing seeks her silent room,
And slowly, with her faint white fingers,
Robs her long tresses of the bloom
Of pale sweet flowers—yet musing lingers,
For he, ere yet he breathed adieu,
Had twined his fingers with a tress,
And praised its wavy length anew,
