Night and Moon

That orbèd maiden, with white fire laden,

What if this present were the world’s last night?

By night an atheist half believes a God.

Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day.

Was I deceiv’d or did a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night?

It is the very error of the moon; She comes more near the earth than she was wont, And makes men mad.

The bright day is done, And we are for the dark.

The sun’s rim dips, the stars rush out: At one stride comes the dark; With far-heard whisper o’er the sea Off shot the specter bark.

Already with thee! tender is the night.

So we’ll go no more a-roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright. For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest. Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we’ll go no more a-roving By the light of the moon.

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery noon, and eve’s one star, Sat gray-hair’d Saturn, quiet as a stone.

At midnight on the Emperor’s pavement flit Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit.

The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast, the light Gleams, and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

I am she who adorn’d herself and folded her hair expectantly, My truant lover has come, and it is dark.

Upon the clothes behind the tenement, That hang like ghosts suspended from the lines, Linking each flat, but to each indifferent, Incongruous and strange the moonlight shines.

So, while the light fails

Über allen Gipfeln

A shout that tore hell’s concave, and beyond

St Agnes’ Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!

It is the evening that questions thus from within me.

Men born in hot countries love the night because it refreshes them and have a horror of light because it burns them.

The deep of night is crept upon our talk, And nature must obey necessity.

The wakeful nightingale, She all night long her amorous descant sung; Silence was pleas’d: now glow’d the firmament With living sapphires: Hesperus, that led The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon, Rising in clouded majesty, at length Apparent queen unveil’d her peerless light, And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.

Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom, Far from all resort of mirth, Save the cricket on the hearth.