Poems of Sentiment and Imagination/The Twenty-four Hours
THE TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.
ONE.
The spell is perfect! every charm of night
Has worked its deep enchantment on the world:
Slumber, and silence, and the mystic light
Of the white, ghostly moon; the bat has furled
Its flabby wing beneath some yew-tree shade;
The owl is silent in its dark retreat;
The phantoms of the restless dead are laid,
And ouphes and fairies stay their tiny feet:
Each wandering spirit yields it to the spell,
And for one charméd hour the world sleeps well.
TWO.
Down sinks the moon, and up the tempest rises,
And each meets each on the horizon's verge;
The hurrying darkness the late moon surprises,
And maddened winds the moaning forests scourge.
Lingers the red moon yet a little longer,
Her thin horns piercing through the sable clouds,
Then disappears—when louder grown and stronger,
The tempest shrieks, and bursting through its shrouds
Hurls down its thunderbolts, looses its lightning,
Groans through the woodlands, and howls through the waves,
Air-spirits gladd'ning, and earth-spirits fright'ning,
Wildly carousing it revels and raves.
THREE.
The spirits of the storm have spent their wrath,
The sea but murmurs, and the forests sigh;
The clouds are folded back, and the bright path
That the stars take is seen upon the sky.
So almost have they reached their nightly goal;
And not far hence their journey will be done,
And they have passed away from heaven's scroll,
Or lost themselves in the absorbing sun.
FOUR.
Fewer and fainter the stars grow, and dimmer,
Darker, and bluer the sky and the air;
Paler each moment, till hardly a glimmer
Remains of the starlight that erst was so fair.
But the edge of the sky in the east is assuming
The hue of the heron's wing dappled with white;
Yet growing each minute more golden and blooming,
Till at last—yes it is—'tis Aurora's own light!
She has come, and a thousand soft glories attend her,
To herald the sun in his raiment of splendor.
FIVE.
The last bright hue is spent upon the sky,
In painting morning's gorgeous blazonry;
And lo! with pennons of each lovely dye
Flaunting the heavens, and crimson drapery
Floating about him, like a king of old,
Comes the day-monarch—the all-glorious Sun!
His garb of light girded with zone of gold,
And all his bright and kingly vesture on.
The flowers of earth look up with timid bliss,
And deeper blush beneath his morning kiss.
SIX.
The thirsty sun is drinking up
The rain-dew from the flower-cup;
The diamond beads on leaf and stem,
The pearls of the lily's diadem,
The gem that's laid in the star-flower's breast,
The treasures hid 'neath the rose's vest,
They are melting away: oh! maiden, wake!
Ope your dreamy eyes for this beauty's sake!
Unclose your fragrant lips, whose dye
With the fairest rose of mom might vie;
Come forth, where every thing is fair,
And prove yourself the loveliest there.
SEVEN.
Yet looks the morning fair and young,
Yet floats the rosehue through the air,
And nameless graces yet are flung
On every thing, and everywhere:
The grace and radiance of young life,
A "joy forever" to the soul;
A joy with new existence rife,
And spring and fountain of the whole.
Youth! even though it only be
The morning of the common day,
Yet holds a spell of power, which we
May make our charm against decay.
EIGHT.
If you pass along the street,
You shall hear the sound of singing;
Patter too of little feet,
On the sunny pavement ringing.
'Tis the hour of morning sport,
Ere the bells will chime for school;
At the best it is too short—
Harder play the better rule.
Long ago the laborer's toil began;
Long ago the townsman sought his task;
Long ago the busy artisan
Whistled to his work, with merry mask:
Now we see what toil and what endeavor,
Haunt man's footsteps to the grave forever.
NINE.
Now the lazy urchin lags and lingers
In the shadow of the wayside trees;
Tossing pebbles from his careless fingers,
While his curls are tossed upon the breeze.
Comes the prudent matron close behind him,
On her way to market, shop, or call,
Quite surprised, and full of grief to find him
Playing truant by the garden wall.
Ah, his pace from thence is duly quickened,
To the crowded school-room he must come,
Be he e'er so weary, or so sickened,
Of its tedious tasks and ceaseless hum.
Soon each actor to the part decreed him,
In the drama of the passing day,
Unresisting hastens, and the freedom
That he sighs for, trafficks for his pay.
This, because our life was made for labor,
And its purpose we may not gainsay.
TEN.
The street is now almost deserted,
Save here and there a straggling form;
He looking, too, quite disconcerted,
And most uncomfortably warm.
The shadows of the trees have shifted,
And taken a most dwarfish length;
And one indeed must needs be gifted
Who cheats the sun of half his strength.
Ah, ten o'clock in midst of summer,
Was never meant for promenade;
And for the ignorant presumer
This sage remark of mine was made.
ELEVEN.
Not much has the sun his manners amended,
But ardent as ever smiles down on us still;
And we can be only surprised and offended,
While he scorches or melts us with hearty good-will.
'Tis the way of some people, to make their advances,
Whether welcome or hateful, forever the same;
So 'tis useless to take any heed of his glances—
In good time he'll leave us, unasked, as he came.
TWELVE.
Ha, ha; and oh, ho; ding-dong, and pell-mell!
What with girls and with boys out of school, and the bell,
And the hurry of workmen from labor set free,
And the meeting, and greeting, 'tis a great jubilee!
Now lies the still, bright noon upon the fields,
When the green leaves hang moveless in the sun;
Even the clover sweet no perfume yields,
And every fragrance faints beneath the noon.
Yet is there something glorious in this same
Meridian quiet, as if pausing here
The god of day looked back the way he came,
And proudly mused upon his high career;
While gathering up his strength to take again
His tireless pilgrimage o'er heaven's plain.
Noon in the country! you can hear the shrill
Cries of the cricket in the parching grass;
With babble of some almost famished rill,
Inviting you to tarry ere you pass;
And noisy katy-did, that lies perdue
Beneath some broad green leaf beside the way
Striving to tempt you to an interview,
And make you ask what katy did that day:
The little stir of insect life alone,
Breaking the lazy silence of the noon.
ONE.
Wends the lab'rer to his toil once more;
Hies the care-bound merchant to his desk;
Turns the student to his weary lore;
Lags the dreading urchin to his task.
Only half of the long day is spent,
Yet you languish for the distant close;
Foolish mortal! vain your discontent,
Vain your weary longing for repose;
Fill the day with works your hands have wrought;
Sweet shall be the rest your toil has brought.
TWO.
Vainly are we told we may not slumber:
The tired scholar nods above his book;
Little weary children without number
Lie asleep in every curtained nook;
Listless belles, fatigued with last night's trifling,
On soft silken sofas idly pine;
While their languid thoughts are busy rifling
All invention for some new design—
Some new fancy for a glove or shoe-tie,
Over which they muse awhile, then dream;
Fancying they hear some rival's beauty
Lauded by the beau whom all esteem
Quite the lion of the latest season—
When they're rudely wakened by the treason!
Many a graver person, I am thinking,
Should we peep, would be caught napping too;
'Tis so difficult to keep from winking,
At this hour in summer, as you know:
Even the parson, after having dinner,
They really do say, snores like a sinner.
THREE.
Now comes the breeze up from the sea,
And dallies with the elm-tree boughs;
And with the waving willow tree,
Gracefully and capriciously,
Coquettes, and sighs its hollow vows,
The locust's glancing leaves are bright
With sheen they've stolen from the sun;
And rippling back from shade to light,
They dance now to, now from the sight,
Like waves that stars are shining on.
A bright face eager peers between
The lattice wreathed with flowering vines,
And with a half-impatient mien,
Has guessed the hours that intervene
Before some joy for which she pines.
The belle consults with Fahrenheit,
And lastly with her mirror true;
Then steps into the quiet street,
And gracefully her tiny feet
Present their owner to the view.
And ere the hour has passed away,
Full many a form of "fair and brave"—
Full many a knight, and lady gay,
In quest of pleasure or display,
Will stalk or trip along the pave.
FOUR.
School is closed, and shouts of laughter
Set the sleepy echoes ringing;
Girlish voices, coming after,
Mix with sweet and childish singing.
Happy hearts! how simple blessings
Make of joy a flowing measure!
By and by, more dear possessings
Scarce will be to you a pleasure.
By and by, Time's envious finger
Slyly tilts your cup of gladness!
Ah, long may the sweetness linger,
Though ye lose youth's merry madness:
Laugh and shout—your cheerful voices
Many a weary ear rejoices!
FIVE.
Now the wealthy townsman, homeward hieing,
Clears the look of figures from his brow;
Walking with grand dignity, and trying
To affect an easy smile and bow—
Wishing to appear not too much laden
With the wealth for which in youth he toiled;
Speaking kindly to each pretty maiden,
Stopping to caress each his neighbor's child—
Letting fall some little drops of kindness,
On their youthful hearts in very blindness.
Pleasant evening hour! when households gather
All their treasures round the ample board;
Roguish pet, and proud and sober father,
Handsome brother, by the belles adored;
Gentle sister, like a lily-flower,
Like a tall white lily growing there,
Queen of all the rest in her sweet power—
Reigning by her beauty, unaware:
Happy hour! and happy hearts, that meeting,
Hear and give love's ever-gentle greeting!
SIX.
Faint grow the shadows that flicker and waver,
Of the leaves of the vine o'er the green lattice flung;
Cooler the sea-breeze, and sweeter the flavor
Of gardens, whose odors are newly up-sprung.
Gorgeous clouds in the occident floating—
Rose-hue and purple, and crimson and gold—
Radiant "arrows of sunset" upshooting,
Shine round the banners of sunset unrolled.
Fair was the sun in his soft morning splendor;
Fair in his brilliant and noon-day array;
But all of their glory conspired, could not render
His presence so dazzhngly, gorgeously gay!
Earth thou art lovely! and fair thy adorning,
Loveliest far of the brides of the sun;
Bright are the gifts he bestoweth each morning—
Glad are his smiles on his own chosen one.
SEVEN.
The rosy twilight of a summer eve—
When changing shadows play along the sky,
With remnants which the sunset glories leave,
Woven with fancies of a duskier dye.
The fair soft twilight, when the maiden steals
To the deep shadow of some garden tree;
And to the silence her young heart reveals,
Breathing her dreams in pleasant reverie.
The tender twilight, when the soul yields up
Its love and sweetness like a rich perfume,
Filling with tenderness—as fills the cup
Of the night-flowers with dew drawn from their bloom.
The twilight hour, that stores the poet's heart
With fine conceptions of all loveliness;
That stirs him with a love from day apart,
Full of high spiritual thought and holiness.
EIGHT.
At length the twilight fades away,
And the warm hues are slowly blent
With deepening evening; and the play
Of shadows in the orient
Has ceased, and stars have come instead;
And over all the robe of night
Like a rich-jeweled manta's spread—
So beautifully soft and bright.
Now seeks the lover his young bride,
And with her gazes on the sky;
Yet, standing by her beating side,
Sees more stars in her moist clear eye;
And sweeter light on her pure face
Than in the half-orbed silver moon;
And in her twining arms more grace
Than in the white-rose branch of June.
The bliss of young love's rosy dream
Beneath the summer evening skies,
Ah, what could purchase? Not a gleam
Of the much fabled Paradise—
Nor promise of an Indian isle,
Where ever-constant summers smile!
NINE.
New beauty adds itself unto the night
Sweet music sighs on every wave of air;
The heavens are growing more intensely bright,
And the clear atmosphere more purely fair.
The weary student throws his book aside—
The night is all too glorious to be spent
In gaining wisdom from the musty guide
O'er which his cramped and toilsome mind has bent.
He must go forth—all others have gone forth—
To learn a lesson from heaven's shining page;
One hour of its bright teaching must be worth
The soulless study of a tedious age.
The sound of voices, and the fitful sigh
Among the branches of the "low south wind,"
And the calm, radiant beauty of the sky,
Have a rare charm to his o'er-toiling mind;
And he will wander out, and wander on,
Forgetful of his books, himself, the world—
So has his spirit into ether flown,
When in free air her unbound wings unfurled.
When the gay groups of idlers all are gone,
He with the grand, fair night will be alone.
TEN.
The faltering farewell has been said,
The lover from his love has parted;
And listening to his distant tread,
She dreams, half happy, half sad-hearted,
Then sighing seeks her silent room,
And slowly, with her faint white fingers,
Robs her long tresses of the bloom
Of pale sweet flowers—yet musing lingers,
For he, ere yet he breathed adieu,
Had twined his fingers with a tress,
And praised its wavy length anew,
And begged it for its loveliness.
Her very self becomes more dear,
That she is fair and dear to him;
And musing thus, a single tear
Falls from her eye, and breaks her dream.
She starts, and putting back the curls
From her pure forehead, smiles for shame;
From her white throat untwines the pearls,
And gazing on them, breathes his name.
At length, in snowy robe, she kneels,
And asks of Heaven to bless her love;
And to forgive, if what she feels
Be not what angels feel above:
Then rising seeks her couch, to sleep
Her happy slumbers, soft and deep.
ELEVEN.
The soft air is so full of light, downflowing
From all the lamps above, that like a stream
Escaped of heaven's radiance, the glowing
And sweetly blended rays together gleam.
A kind of listening presence, too, seems gliding
Over and through the earth, that piercing pries
Into each quiet nook, and seeks the hiding
Secrets of all men out, with curious eyes.
Between the window-bars of beauty's chamber,
It enters on the sweetly perfumed air;
Touching the fringes of her eyes with amber,
And weaving pale gold threads with her soft hair.
Lying upon her lips, it hears and numbers
The times she murmurs in her pensive sleep;
And learns the name but uttered in her slumbers,
And steals the tear, if in her dream she weep,
It floats abroad, through every crevice darting;
Among the dense black shadows stealing in;
And if the breeze, in fitful play upstarting,
Parts but a shade-tree bough, it shoots between.
The conscious air with viewless life is panting;
Mysterious eyes seek nameless mysteries out;
Spirits of elfin power the earth are haunting,
Silently joining in the fairy bout:
The hour of ban and spell will soon be here;
Closed be each mortal eye and mortal ear.
TWELVE.
The solemn glory of the midnight rests
Upon the mountain tops; the golden light,
Grown silvery, and intensely pure, invests
The earth with beauty, strangely, grandly bright.
A touch, as out of heaven, falls upon
The key-notes of the spirit, pressing out
A hymn of awe and sweetness! as if one,
An angel hidden in the soul, should shout,
"Oh, beautiful! that sittest on the throne
Of midnight in the heaven, I worship thee!"
And the pure spiritual in man mounts up,
Yet with an humble reverence, solemnly;
Expanding and increasing in its scope.
The lone, pure, queenly midnight, that enshrines
God, and the angels in the earthly soul;
Midnight the glorious—how fair she shines,
Writing with jewels on night's dark blue scroll.