[Illustration: To ---- ---- (Mrs. Maris Louise Shew)]
'Twas noontide of summer, And mid-time of night; And stars in their orbits, Shone pale, thro' the light Of the brighter, cold moon, 'Mid planets her slaves, Herself in the Heavens, Her beam on the waves. I gazed awhile On her cold smile; Too cold--too cold for me-- There pass'd, as a shroud, A fleecy cloud, And I turn'd away to thee, Proud Evening Star, In thy glory afar, And dearer thy beam shall be; For joy to my heart Is the proud part Thou bearest in Heaven at night, And more I admire Thy distant fire, Than that colder, lowly light.
How often we forget all time, when lone Admiring Nature's universal throne; Her woods--her wilds--her mountains--the intense Reply of HERS to OUR intelligence!
In youth have I known one with whom the Earth In secret communing held--as he with it, In daylight, and in beauty from his birth: Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth A passionate light--such for his spirit was fit-- And yet that spirit knew not, in the hour Of its own fervour--what had o'er it power.
Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er, But I will half believe that wild light fraught With more of sovereignty than ancient lore Hath ever told--or is it of a thought The unembodied essence, and no more That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass As dew of the night-time o'er the summer grass?
Doth o'er us pass, when, as th' expanding eye To the loved object--so the tear to the lid Will start, which lately slept in apathy? And yet it need not be--(that object) hid From us in life--but common--which doth lie Each hour before us--but _then_ only, bid With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken, To awake us--'Tis a symbol and a token
Of what in other worlds shall be--and given In beauty by our God, to those alone Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone, That high tone of the spirit which hath striven Tho' not with Faith--with godliness--whose throne With desperate energy 't hath beaten down; Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.
Thy soul shall find itself alone 'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone; Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine hour of secrecy.