THE SHADOW OF NIGHT
How strange it is to wake
And watch while others sleep,
Till sight and hearing ache
For objects that may keep
The awful inner sense
Unroused, lest it should mark
The life that haunts the emptiness
And horror of the dark.
How strange the distant bay
Of dogs; how wild the note
Of cocks that scream for day,
In homesteads far remote;
How strange and wild to hear
The old and crumbling tower,
Amidst the darkness, suddenly
Take life and speak the hour....
The nightingale is gay,
For she can vanquish night;
Dreaming, she sings of day,
Notes that make darkness bright:
But when the refluent gloom
Saddens the gaps of song,
We charge on her the dolefulness,
And call her crazed with wrong.
Coventry Patmore
465