'HOW long and weary are the nights,' he said, 'When thought and memory wake, and sleep has fled; When phantoms from the past the chamber fill, And tones, long silent, all my pulses thrill; While, sharp as doom, or faint in distant towers, Knell answering knell, the chimes repeat the hours, And wandering wind and waning moon have lent Their sighs and shadows to the heart's lament. Then, from my pillow looking east, I wait The dawn, and life and joy come back, elate, When, fair above the seaward hill afar, Flames the lone splendor of the morning star.' O Vanished One! O loving, glowing heart! When the last evening darkened round thy room, Thou didst not with the setting moon depart; Nor take thy way in midnight's hush and gloom; Nor let the wandering wind thy comrade be, Outsailing on the dim, unsounded sea — The silent sea where falls the muffled oar, And they who cross the strand return no more; But thou didst wait, celestial deeps to try, Till dawn's first rose had flushed the paling sky, And pass, serene, to life and joy afar, Companioned by the bright and morning star! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WATERS OF BABYLON by LOUIS UNTERMEYER LAST SONNET (REVISED VERSION) by JOHN KEATS HOME, SWEET HOME, FR. CLARI, THE MAID OF MILAN by JOHN HOWARD PAYNE WASHINGTON'S MONUMENT, FEBRUARY, 1885 by WALT WHITMAN ECCLESIASTES: THE LIGHT IS SWEET by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE TO THE BARTHOLDI STATUE by AMBROSE BIERCE |