NIGHT.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume 01, Issue 9, 1 June 1900, Page 15

NIGHT.

Hail ! calm, proud Night, upon whoso regal brow, There rests a grace unknown to garish day ; Who on the wings of glaring sunrise borne In trappings bright and tawdry sports her course, And with loud clatter and rude, strident voice, Deafening the ear, disturbs the poet's thought. But thou, 0 Night, author of sweetest hours, Di'awing thy sombre cloak of black around, Mantlest the discontent of day's dark deeds ; Or leastways haply hid'st in silent gloom The errant mortal whose untutored way Hath thrown his luckless steps in paths of wrong. Perchance, 0 queenly Night, with brighter mien, Wrapt in thy robe festooned with heavenly stars, Upon thy head the crown of Lima's beams, Thou walk'st with noiseless steps the world along. Thou hast thy terrors : but for those alone Whose deeds have made them fear themselves ; and then These borrow virtue's worth or hide their thoughts, Through constant contact with their fellow-men. These dread the judgment of thy stillness, Night, For conscience whom day's jarring voice o'erwhelrned Speaks to them now in accents clearly hoard, Upbraiding guilt, and bares their cankered souls, And in the searchlight of some higher glance Their secret wickedness is plain set forth. Perchance one on a bed of sickness laid Kails at thy form, 0 Night, and calls thee cursed. Yet this is but the discontent of pain, That were it Night, would Day ! or Day, would Night! For me, thou hast no terror in thy look ; Beneath thy peaceful sway, the unchained mind, Freed from the tumult of the bu«y world, Is carried upward into purer fields, Or grasps in dreamland's realms, some nobler theme. The heart's most sweet conception is begot Within these calm-enveloped hours of thine. The soul's communion with its Master — God Is fostered in thy depths of Mystery. Thou call'st thy gracious sister, gentle Sleep, To rest the stricken mortal by the way, To salve the sores and heal the gaping wounds, That life's hard-foughten battle doth inflict. And so, would I could thus entrain my verse, And in a network of harmonious chords Could straitly sing a paean of delight To praise thy sacred hours of quiet ease. C. Brasil.