Classic Poem

Now Night's dim hours a solemn silence keep,
Save that strange sounds the startled ear assail,
And waves, slow-broken by the feeble gale,
With plaintive murmurs dash the rocky steep;
Or Watch-dog, starting from his broken sleep,
Bays the high moon, whose circle mild and pale,
Wrapt in a fleecy cloud's transparent veil,
Pours a faint glimmer o'er the desert deep;
The soul collected, all her tumults cease;
Her only wish, the day's vain business o'er,
To drown her cares in sweet forgetful peace.
He truly wretched, who, with troublest breast
Doom'd the lone night his sorrows to deplore,
Tastes not the balmy gift of soothing rest.