| INTO the silver night | |
| She brought with her pale hand | |
| The topaz lanthorn-light, | |
| And darted splendour o'er the land; | |
| Around her in a band, | 5 |
| Ringstraked and pied, the great soft moths came flying, | |
| And flapping with their mad wings, fann'd | |
| The flickering flame, ascending, falling, dying. | |
| |
| Behind the thorny pink | |
| Close wall of blossom'd may, | 10 |
| I gazed thro' one green chink | |
| And saw no more than thousands may,— | |
| Saw sweetness, tender and gay,— | |
| Saw full rose lips as rounded as the cherry, | |
| Saw braided locks more dark than bay, | 15 |
| And flashing eyes decorous, pure, and merry. | |
| |
| With food for furry friends | |
| She pass'd, her lamp and she, | |
| Till eaves and gable-ends | |
| Hid all that saffron sheen from me: | 20 |
| Around my rosy tree | |
| Once more the silver-starry night was shining, | |
| With depths of heaven, dewy and free, | |
| And crystals of a carven moon declining. | |
| |
| Alas! for him who dwells | 25 |
| In frigid air of thought, | |
| When warmer light dispels | |
| The frozen calm his spirit sought; | |
| By life too lately taught | |
| He sees the ecstatic Human from him stealing; | 30 |
| Reels from the joy experience brought, | |
| And dares not clutch what Love was half revealing. | |
