CHILDREN of night! unfolding meekly, slowly, To the sweet breathings of the shadowy hours, When dark-blue heavens look softest and most holy, And glow-worm light is in the forest bowers; To solemn things and deep, To spirit-haunted sleep, To thoughts, all purified From earth, ye seem allied; O dedicated flowers! Ye, from the gaze of crowds your beauty veiling, Keep in dim vestal urns the sweetness shrined; Till the mild moon, on high serenely sailing, Looks on you tenderly and sadly kind. -- So doth love's dreaming heart Dwell from the throng apart, And but to shades disclose The inmost thought, which glows With its pure life entwined. Shut from the sounds wherein the day rejoices, To no triumphant song your petals thrill, But send forth odours with the faint, soft voices Rising from hidden streams, when all is still. -- So doth lone prayer arise, Mingling with secret sighs, When grief unfolds, like you, Her breast, for heavenly dew In silent hours to fill. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SLAVE TRADE: VIEW FROM THE MIDDLE PASSAGE by CLARENCE MAJOR THE LITTLE BLACK BOY, FR. SONGS OF INNOCENCE by WILLIAM BLAKE TO TIRZAH, FR. SONGS OF EXPERIENCE by WILLIAM BLAKE AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE (1889) by CAROLINE KING DUER DYING SPEECH OF AN OLD PHILOSOPHER by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR LONDON'S SUMMER MORNING by MARY DARBY ROBINSON |