Classic Poem

Here in the pine shade is the nest of night,
Lined deep with shadows, odorous and dim,
And here he stays his sweeping flight,
Here where the strongest wind is lulled for him,
He lingers brooding until dawn,
While all the trembling stars move on and on.

Under the cliff there drops a lonely fall,
Deep and half heard its thunder lifts and booms;
Afar the loons with eerie call
Haunt all the bays, and breaking through the glooms
Upfloats that cry of light despair,
As if a demon laughed upon the air.

A raven croaks from out his ebon sleep,
When a brown cone falls near him through the dark;
And when the radiant meteors sweep
Afar within the larches wakes the lark;
The wind moves on the cedar hill,
Tossing the weird cry of the whip-poor-will.

Sometimes a titan wind, slumbrous and hushed,
Takes the dark grove within his swinging power;
And like a cradle softly pushed,
The shade sways slowly for a lulling hour;
While through the cavern sweeps a cry,
A Sibyl with her secret prophecy.

When morning lifts its fragile silver dome,
And the first eagle takes the lonely air,
Up from his dense and sombre home
The night sweeps out, a tireless wayfarer,
Leaving within the shadows deep
The haunting mood and magic of his sleep.

And so we cannot come within this grove,
But all the quiet dusk remembrance brings
Of ancient sorrow and of hapless love,
Fate, and the dream of power, and piercing things,
Traces of mystery and might,
The passion-sadness of the soul of night.