Gleaming fair on the city towers
Where the clocks, thro' the night, chime the passing hours,
On the city's heart that no longer beats,
With the ebb and flow of its noisy streets,
And their living pulse-throbs that come and go,
To the smile of joy, and the throb of woe!
Smiling down from a cloudless sky,
On the village homes, that all peaceful lie;
Where simple hearts, in a happier life,
Know nought of the city's cares and strife,—
The hardy sons of honest toil,
Pensioners free of their parent soil!
To hopeful hearts in the morn of youth,
The dream-land of Love, and the type of Truth,
Where the future shows 'neath its veil of light
An Eden of blissful, untold delight
In the stern, hard struggle of manhood's days
When tired feet stumble o'er life's rough ways,
And in age's twilight of shadowy gloom,
A dream of the rest that is yet to come.
Shine on, silvery moonlight, shine!
Gladden earth with your beams benign;
On restless ocean, on tranquil lake,
Through forest alleys, by fern and brake;
By quiet village, and crowded town,
By mountain, prairie, and breezy down;
O'er sights of gladness, o'er scenes of woe,
Let the tender light of thy pure beams glow,
And the weary and hopeless shall bless your light.
And the child of joy have more pure delight.
"GOODNIGHT."
"Until the day break, and the shadows flee away."
Cant. 2.17
Goodnight, beloved! see the sun descending,
Behind the woodlands of the far, bright West,
And in the glory of the daylights ending,
The "light at eventide" brings dreams of rest.
Goodnight, beloved! now the grey-eyed gloaming
Glides through the valleys with an unheard tread,
And haunts the woodlands, where the wild winds moaning
Wails o'er the leaves of Autumn, sere and dead.
Goodnight, beloved! see the pale stars peeping
Through the blue curtain of the shadowy skies;—
The lamps the angels hold, their night-watch keeping,
O'er souls who wait their call to Paradise!