Poems (Cook)/Night
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.