Ten o'clock: the broken moon Hangs not yet a half hour high, Yellow as a shield of brass, In the dewy air of June, Poised between the vaulted sky And the ocean's liquid glass.
The shadow of the houses leave behind, In the cool boscage of the grove reclined, The wine of friendship from love's goblet drink, And entertain with cheerful speech the mind.
Unto the house of prayer my spirit yearns, Unto the sources of her being turns, To where the sacred light of heaven burns, She struggles thitherward by day and night.
Night, and the heavens beam serene with peace, Like a pure heart benignly smiles the moon. Oh, guard thy blessed beauty from mischance, This I beseech thee in all tender love....
Will night already spread her wings and weave Her dusky robe about the day's bright form, Boldly the sun's fair countenance displacing, And swathe it with her shadow in broad day?...
MUSE. Give me a kiss, my poet, take thy lyre; The buds are bursting on the wild sweet-briar. To-night the Spring is born - the breeze takes fire. Expectant of the dawn behold the thrush,...
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame...
What, can these dead bones live, whose sap is dried By twenty scorching centuries of wrong? Is this the House of Israel, whose pride Is as a tale that's told, an ancient song?...
POET. My haunting grief has vanished like a dream, Its floating fading memory seems one With those frail mists born of the dawn's first beam, Dissolving as the dew melts in the sun.