’TIS the middle watch of a summer’s night,—
The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright;
Nought is seen in the vault on high
But the moon and the stars and the cloudless sky,
And the flood which rolls its milky hue,—
A river of light on the welkin blue.
The moon looks down on old Cronest,
She mellows the shades on his shaggy breast
And seems his huge gray form to throw
In a silver cone on the wave below;
His sides are broken by spots of shade,
By the walnut bough and the cedar made,
And through their clustering branches dark
Glimmers and dies the firefly’s spark,—
Like starry twinkles that momently break
Through the rifts of the gathering tempest rack.
The stars are on the moving stream,
And fling, as its ripples gently flow,
A burnished length of wavy beam
In an eel-like, spiral line below.
The winds are whist, and the owl is still,
The bat in the shelvy rock is hid;
And nought is heard on the lonely hill
But the cricket’s chirp and the answer shrill
Of the gauze-winged katy-did,
And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will
Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings
Ever a note of wail and woe,
Till morning spreads her rosy wings,
And earth and sky in her glances glow.