'TIS now the hour of mirth, the hour of love, The hour of melancholy. Night, as vain Of her full beauty, seems to pause above, That all may look upon her ere it wane. The heavenly angel watch'd his subject's star O'er all that's good and fair benignly smiling; The sighs of wounded love he hears, from far; Weeps that he cannot heal, and wafts a hope beguiling. The nether earth looks beauteous as a gem; High o'er her groves, in floods of moonlight laving, The towering palm displays his silver stem, The while his plumy leaves scarce in the breeze are waving The nightingale among his roses sleeps; The soft-eyed doe in thicket deep is sleeping; The dark green myrrh her tears of fragrance weeps, And, every odorous spike in limpid dew is steeping. Proud prickly cerea, now thy blossom 'scapes Its cell; brief cup of light; and seems to say, "I am not for gross mortals; blood of grapes -- And sleep for them! Come spirits, while ye may!" A silent stream winds darkly through the shade, And slowly gains the Tigris, where 't is lost; By a forgotten prince, of old, 't was made, And, in its course, full many a fragment crost Of marble fairly carved; and by its side Her golden dust the flaunting lotus threw O'er her white sisters, throned upon the tide, And queen of every flower that loves perpetual dew. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE JOURNEY by EMILY DICKINSON IN HOSPITAL: 4. BEFORE by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY A MINUET ON REACHING THE AGE OF FIFTY by GEORGE SANTAYANA IN VINCULIS; SONNETS WRITTEN IN AN IRISH PRISON: A LESSON IN HUMILITY by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT VALERIAN by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB MEDITATIONS FOR EVERY DAY IN PASSION WEEK: TUESDAY by JOHN BYROM OLNEY HYMNS: 28. JESUS HASTENING TO SUFFER by WILLIAM COWPER |