BELOVED! in this holy hush of night, I know that thou art looking to the South, Fair face and cordial brow bathed in the light Of tender Heavens, and o'er thy delicate mouth A dewy gladness from thy dark eyes shed; O eloquent eyes! that on the evening spread The glory of a radiant world of dreams (The inner moonlight of the soul that dims This moonlight of the sense), and o'er thy head, Thrown back, as listening to a voice of hymns, Perchance in thine own spirit, violet gleams From modest flowers that deck the window-bars, While the winds sigh, and sing the far-off streams, And a faint bliss seems dropping from the stars. O! pour thine inmost soul upon the air And trust to heaven the secrets that recline In the sweet nunnery of thy virgin breast; Speak to the winds that wander everywhere, -- And sure must wander hither -- the divine Contentment, and the infinite, deep rest That sway thy passionate being, and lift high To the calm realm of Love's eternity, The passive ocean of thy charmed thought; And tell the aerial element to bear The burden of thy whispered heart to me, By fairy alchemy of distance wrought To something sacred as a saintly prayer, A spell to set my nobler nature free. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE JOY OF WRITING by WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA HESPERUS THE BRINGER by SAPPHO THE CATARACT OF LODORE by ROBERT SOUTHEY THE CHILD ALONE: 6. BLOCK CITY by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON THE KING'S DAUGHTER by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 58. AL-MUHSI by EDWIN ARNOLD |