Poems (Cook)/Night

by Eliza Cook

For works with similar titles, see Night.

 

NIGHT.

The God of Day is speeding his way
 Through the golden gates of the West;
The rosebud sleeps in the parting ray,
 The bird is seeking its nest.

I love the light-yet welcome, Night;
 For beneath thy darkling fall,
The troubled breast is soothed in rest,
 And the slave forgets his thrall.

The peasant child, all strong and wild,
 Is growing quiet and meek;
All fire is hid 'neath his heavy lid,
 The lashes yearn to the cheek.

He roves no more in gamesome glee,
 But hangs his weary head;
And loiters beside the mother's knee,
 To ask his lowly bed.

The butterflies fold their wings of gold,
 The dew falls chill in the bower;
The cattle wait at the kineyard gate,
 The bee hath forsaken the flower:

The roar of the city is dying fast,
 Its tongues no longer thrill;
The hurrying tread is faint at last,
 The artisan's hammer is still.

Night steals apace she rules supreme;
 A hallow'd calm is shed:
No footstep breaks, no whisper wakes—
 'Tis the silence of the dead.

The hollow bay of a distant dog
 Bids drowsy Echo start;
The chiming hour, from an old church tower,
 Strikes fearfully on the heart.

All spirits are bound in slumber sound,
 Save those o'er a death-bed weeping;
Or the soldier one that paces alone,
 His guard by the watch-fire keeping.

With ebon wand and sable robe,
 How beautiful, Night, art thou!
Serenely set on a throne of jet,
 With stars about thy brow.

Thou comest to dry the mourner's eye,
 That, wakeful, is ever dim;
To hush for awhile the grieving sigh,
 And give strength to the wearied limb.

Hail to thy sceptre, Ethiop queen!
 Fair mercy marks thy reign;
For the careworn breast may take its rest,
 And the slave forget his chain.