It is a holy night. The moon
Hath made it like a gentler noon,
And every deep and starry eye
Is waking in the summer sky,
As if its light were made alone
For restless hearts to gaze upon.
There are no voices, and the stir
Of the soft south goes lightlier
Among the branches, and the deep,
Felt stillness of a world asleep,
Is on my spirit like the touch
Of a sweet friend who loveth much.
I’ve left my books. I cannot damp
My heart beside a weary lamp
While heaven is set with stars, and I
Am not to sit down quietly,
And on a musty altar fling
The birthright of a glorious wing.
Reason who will; while skies of June
Are molten by this silent moon,
While flowers have breath, and voices creep
From running brook and fountain-leap,
While any thing is left to love
In this fair earth and heaven above,
I would not wear a fettered limb
To make Chaldea’s wisdom dim.
Why, what is duty? Sky and sea,
Thou promised heaven! are types of thee;
The earth is like a flowing cup
Of perfect beauty mingled up;
The very elements of heaven,
Life, light, and music, freely given;
The world an Eden, and we thirst
For every voice and fountain-burst;
And yet, we’re told, at duty’s call
We must forego--forget them all!
How has the foot of nature trod
The pathway of a perfect God,
How are the springs of earnest thought
With his diviner cunning wrought,
If all that makes us feel our fate
Not altogether desolate--
This burning love for beautiful things,
Is sealed among forbidden springs,
And we must throw a gift of fire
Aside like a neglected lyre?