night

Long, long, long the trail
Through the brooding forest-gloom,
Down the shadowy, lonely vale
Into silence, like a room
Where the light of life has fled,
And the jealous curtains close
Round the passionless repose
Of the silent dead.

Plod, plod, plod away,
Step by step in mouldering moss;
Thick branches bar the day
Over languid streams that cross
Softly, slowly, with a sound
In their aimless creeping
Like a smothered weeping,
Through the enchanted ground.

Lie still, sleep becalmed, sufferer with the wound
In the throat, burning and turning. All night afloat
On the silent sea we have heard the sound
That came from the wound wrapped in the salt sheet.

Under the mile off moon we trembled listening
To the sea sound flowing like blood from the loud wound
And when the salt sheet broke in a storm of singing
The voices of all the drowned swam on the wind.

Open a pathway through the slow sad sail,
Throw wide to the wind the gates of the wandering boat

There shone a comet, and it was full west.
My thoughts presagéd what it did portend;
I found it threatened to my heart unrest,
And might in time my joys and comfort end.
I further sought and found it was a sun,
Which day nor night did never use to set.
It constant stood when heavens did restless run,
And did their Virtues and their forces let.
The world did muse and wonder what it meant,
A sun to shine and in the west to rise;
To search the truth, I strength and spirits spent;

Fair matchless nymph, respect but what I crave;
My thoughts are true, and honour is my love;
I fainting die whom yet a smile might save;
You gave the wound, and can the hurt remove.
Those eyes like stars that twinkle in the night,
And cheeks like rubies pale in lilies dyed,
Those ebon hands that darting hath such might
That in my soul my love and life divide,
Accept the passions of a man possessed;
Let love be loved and grant me leave to live;
Disperse those clouds that darkened have my rest,

Years, months, days, hours, in sighs I sadly spend;
I black the night wherein I sleepless toss;
I love my griefs yet wish them at an end;
Thus time's expense increaseth but my loss.
I musing stand and wonder at my love,
That in so fair should be a heart of steel;
And then I think my fancy to remove,
But then more painful I my passions feel;
Thus must I love, sweet fair, until I die,
And your unkindness doth my love increase.
I conquered am, I can it not deny;
My life must end, yet shall my love not cease.

As are the sands, fair Licia, on the shore,
Or colored flowers, garlands of the spring,
Or as the frosts not seen, not felt before,
Or as the fruits that autumn forth doth bring;
As twinkling stars, the tinsel of the night,
Or as the fish that gallop in the seas;
As airs each part that still escapes our sight,
So are my sighs, controllers of my ease.
Yet these are such as needs must have an end,
For things finite none else hath nature done;
Only the sighs, which from my heart I send,

Thou warden of the western gate, above Manhatten Bay,
The fogs of doubt that hid thy face are driven clean away:
Thine eyes at last look far and clear, thou liftest high thy hand
To spread the light of liberty world-wide for every land.

No more thou dreamest of a peace reserved alone for thee,
While friends are fighting for thy cause beyond the guardian sea:
The battle that they wage is thine; thou fallest if they fall;
The swollen flood of Prussian pride will sweep unchecked o'er all.

A big bud of moon hangs out of the twilight,
Star-spiders spinning their thread
Hang high suspended, withouten respite
Watching us overhead.

Come then under the trees, where the leaf-cloths
Curtain us in so dark
That here we’re safe from even the ermin-moth’s
Flitting remark.

Here in this swarthy, secret tent,
Where black boughs flap the ground,
You shall draw the thorn from my discontent,
Surgeon me sound.

This rare, rich night! For in here
Under the yew-tree tent

Tu conoschi la moje de Fichetto:
Bè, lei giura e spergiura ch'er zu' nonno,
Stanno una notte tra la vej'e 'r zonno,
Se sentì ffà un zospiro accapalletto.

Arzò la testa, e ne sentì un siconno.
Allora lui cor fiato ch'ebbe in petto
Strillò: Spirito bono o maledetto,
Di' da parte de Dio; che cerchi ar monno?"

Dice: "Io mill'anni addietro ero Badessa,
E in sto logo che stava er dormitorio
Cor un cetrolo me sfonnai la fessa.

Da' un scudo ar piggionante, a don Libborio,

Senti sto fatto. Un giorno de st'istate
Lavoravo ar convento de Genzano,
E ssentivo de sopra ch'er guardiano
Tirava giù biastime a carrettate;

Perché, essenno le gente aridunate
Per cantà la novena a ssan Cazziano,
Cerca qua, chiama là, quer zagristano
Drento a le celle nun trovava un frate.

Era vicino a notte, e un pispillorio
Già se sentiva in de la chiesa piena,
Quanno senti che ffa ppadre Grigorio.

Curze a intoccà la tevola de cena,
E appena che fu empito er refettorio