A NIGHT AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.
Moonlight upon the mountains, softly bright!
The green leaves quiver in the silvery light,
Shed from the starry heavens round me rise
These monuments of countless centuries
Gone to decay—more strong and stately now,
Than when the first green crown set on each brow,
Told of imperial triumph—uninscribed,
They tower around, as if the past had bribed
Them into silence of its stormy tale;
As if the dark leaf and the midnight gale,
Had found no tongue to whisper of its fate
So glorious, yet so stern and desolate.
The green leaves quiver in the silvery light,
Shed from the starry heavens round me rise
These monuments of countless centuries
Gone to decay—more strong and stately now,
Than when the first green crown set on each brow,
Told of imperial triumph—uninscribed,
They tower around, as if the past had bribed
Them into silence of its stormy tale;
As if the dark leaf and the midnight gale,
Had found no tongue to whisper of its fate
So glorious, yet so stern and desolate.
I hear them now I strange voices on the wind,
Come to the haunted chambers of my mind,
Lessening its power of thought. Bright images,
Shaped in the mind, yet born of melodies
Lost in the mighty past, before me rise,
Changeful as visioned dreams of paradise;
And in the dim, uncertain light, I trace
Slowly uprising from their burial-place
Within the wood—the nameless kings of old,
Whose veins, once fall of life, have long been cold
Come to the haunted chambers of my mind,
Lessening its power of thought. Bright images,
Shaped in the mind, yet born of melodies
Lost in the mighty past, before me rise,
Changeful as visioned dreams of paradise;
And in the dim, uncertain light, I trace
Slowly uprising from their burial-place
Within the wood—the nameless kings of old,
Whose veins, once fall of life, have long been cold
