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 sea
Of Heaven, and faintly touched with silvery palms
Our 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 where
The "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 spread
The stars, like golden barks,—their wondrous tale
Still 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 fain
Startled 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 wreath
Scatter'd her blossoms, all our way adorning.

Through the midnight we wandered till grey morn
Opened the orient gates,—and feeble and faint
Came 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.