Poems of Sentiment and Imagination/The Midnight Banner
THE MIDNIGHT BANNER.
Once upon a night of sorrow,
Sat I waiting for the morrow,
With my hand upon my forehead,
And a grief upon my heart;
One I loved had rashly spoken
Words by which our hearts are broken—
Fatal words, of bitter meaning,
Such as force our souls apart;
And I sat in tearless sorrow
Till the midnight should depart.
Then, to cool the fever burning
Like a flame my forehead, turning
To the closely-curtained window,
I had drawn the folds aside;
When I saw, all bathed in moonlight,
Floating in the face of midnight,
Like a robed and winged spirit,
A dark banner, long and wide,
Streaming out upon the night-wind
In its lone and solemn pride.
With a motion slow and even,
Up against the starry heaven,
Floated that mysterious banner;
Like a proud and mournful soul,
Brooding o'er a sorrow hidden
In a heart-cell, which, unbidden,
Human eye may ne'er discover—
Human love may not console;
Sadly and in silence mourning
Fate which nothing can control.
Like a disembodied spirit,
The wan moon was hovering near it,
With a face all dim and pallid,
Just above the banner's height;
While it kept its murmuring motion,
Like a wave upon the ocean,
Or a sigh within a bosom
Struggling back from human sight;
Heedless of the spirit shedding
Round it her caressing light.
Long I gazed, almost forgetting
My own grieving and regretting,
On that dark, mysterious banner,
Floating on the midnight wind;
And I borrowed from its seeming
Thoughts in that strange hour of dreaming,
That have left undying tokens
Of themselves upon my mind;
And my spirit gathered from them
Knowledge holy and refined.
All the wildness of my madness
Altered to a calmer sadness—
Under that dim banner marshaled,
Memory viewed her countless host;
And my soul looked on confessing,
With a murmured prayer and blessing,
Each endearing reminiscence
In the tide of passion lost;
And a thrill of hope and gladness
My tumultuous bosom crossed.
Then the banner, like my spirit,
Ceased to waver, and more near it
Rode the pale moon, slow descending
To the chambers of the west;
And then for one blissful minute,
The dark banner held within it
The pale spirit's lovely vision,
Like a face within a breast;
And I knew by that sweet omen
I should be forgiven and blessed.