The Night is a far-spreading garden, and all through the hours
Glisten and glitter and sparkle her wonderful flowers.
First the great moon-rose full blooming; the great bed of stars
Touching with restful gold petals the woodland's dark bars;
Then arc-lights like asters that blossom in street and in square,
And lamps like primroses beyond them in planted parterre;
Great tulips of crimson that rise from the factory towers;
White lilies that drop from deep windows: all flowers, the Night's flowers!
Blooms on the highway that twinkle and fade like the stars,
Golden and red on the vans and the carts and the cars;
Clusters of bloom in the village; lone homesteads a-light,
Decking the lawns of the darkness, the plots of the Night.
Then the bright blossoms of platform and signal that shine
By the iron-paved path of the garden--the lights of the Line;
The gold flowers of comfort and caution; the buds of dull red,
Sombre with warning; the green leaves that say "Right ahead!"
Then the flowers in the harbour that low to the tide of it lean;
The lights on the port and the starboard, the red and the green,
Mixing and mingling with mast lights that move in the air,
And deck lights and wharf lights and lights upon pier-head and stair;
An edging of gold where a liner steals by like a thief;
The giant grey gleam of a searchlight that swings like a leaf;
And far out to seaward faint petals that flutter and fall
Against the white flower of the Lighthouse that gathers them all.
Then flower lights all golden with welcome--the lights of the inn;
And poisonous hell-flowers, lit doorways that beckon to sin;
Soft vesper flowers of the Churches with dark stems above;
Gold flowers of court and of cottage made one flower by love;
Beacons of windows on hillside and cliff to recall
Some wanderer lost for a season--Night's flowers one and all!
In the street, in the lane, on the Line, on the ships and the towers,
In the windows of cottage and palace--all flowers, the Night's flowers!