Poems (Eckley)/Midnight on the Prato-Fiorito

by Sophia May Eckley

MIDNIGHT ON THE PRATO-FIORITO. (BAGNI DI LUCCA.)

IGHT clasped the diamond hours in her arms,And pale the moon-beams rippled down the seaOf Heaven, and faintly touched with silvery palmsOur shadowy pathway over hill and lea.

Night hung her dewy mantle on the air,The leaves hung heavy with the drops of night;A silence sweet and solemn reigned, save whereThe "Lima" murmured in her dreamy light.

The night-wind whispered through the garnered sheaves,Telling her secret, ere she died away,Folding to rest and sleep the quivering leaves,And half-shut buds, that fringed our mountain way.

Upon the sea of Heaven above us spreadThe stars, like golden barks,—their wondrous taleStill sung, as on their heavenly mission sped—They beamed on mountains, glisten'd on the vale.

Great Jove with "Medicean stars" in train,With golden shield, and arrows tipped for flight,Transfixed the night to mocking day, and fainStartled the darkness into laughs of light.

"And dark Orion turning the shadow of death"Into the pearly colours of the morning,And lo! the seven stars of Pleiad's wreathScatter'd her blossoms, all our way adorning.

Through the midnight we wandered till grey mornOpened the orient gates,—and feeble and faintCame the soft breathings of a day new born—Breezes Auroral, like prayers of a Saint.

The clouds on the far mountain tops away,Like billows broke in the warm day-light's glow,A sea fantastic, scattering silver spray,To fall in cool drops to the glades below.

So the brief day of life seemed typified,The night of death no longer lost in gloom;But glorious morning breaking far and wide,Even through darkest darkness of the tomb.