Miscellaneous Poems — Midnight

MIDNIGHT.

The moon shines white and silent On the mist, which, like a tide Of some enchanted ocean, O'er the wide marsh doth glide, Spreading its ghost-like billows Silently far and wide.

A vague and starry magic Makes all things mysteries, And lures the earth's dumb spirit Up to the longing skies,-- I seem to hear dim whispers, And tremulous replies.

The fireflies o'er the meadow In pulses come and go;

The elm-trees' heavy shadow Weighs on the grass below;

And faintly from the distance The dreaming cock doth crow.

All things look strange and mystic, The very bushes swell And take wild shapes and motions, As if beneath a spell,-- They seem not the same lilacs From childhood known so well.

The snow of deepest silence O'er everything doth fall, So beautiful and quiet, And yet so like a pall,-- As if all life were ended, And rest were come to all.

O wild and wondrous midnight, There is a might in thee To make the charmèd body Almost like spirit be, And give it some faint glimpses Of immortality!

1842.