Night and Moon

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair, Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair, State in wonted manner keep: Hesperus entreats thy light, Goddess, excellently bright.

Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will! Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!

Turn away no more. Why wilt thou turn away? The starry floor, The wat’ry shore Is giv’n thee till the break of day.

Her beams bemocked the sultry main, Like April hoarfrost spread; But where the ship’s huge shadow lay, The charmed water burnt alway A still and awful red.

The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright— And this was odd, because it was The middle of the night.

Listen, my children, and you shall hear, Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year.

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, O what black hours we have spent This night.

In the uncertain hour before the morning Near the ending of interminable night At the recurrent end of the unending After the dark dove with the flickering tongue Had passed below the horizon of his homing.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

Noche oscura.

To perish rather, swallowed up and lost

The evening star,

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

The hum of either army stilly sounds, That the fix’d sentinels almost receive The secret whispers of each other’s watch: Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames Each battle sees the other’s umber’d face: Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs Piercing the night’s dull ear; and from the tents The armorers, accomplishing the knights, With busy hammers closing rivets up, Give dreadful note of preparation.

The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots, and wonders At our quaint spirits.

There’s husbandry in heaven; Their candles are all out.

Sweet the coming on Of grateful ev’ning mild, then silent night With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon, And these the gems of heaven, her starry train.

A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

The day in its hotness, The strife with the palm; The night in her silence, The stars in their calm.

One if by land, and two if by sea; 1 And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm.

The silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain.

When the footpads quail at the night-bird’s wail, and black dogs bay at the moon, Then is the specters’ holiday—then is the ghosts’ high noon!

I have been one acquainted with the night.