When the sombre night is dumb,
Hushed the loud chrysanthemum,
Sister, sleep!
Sleep, the lissom lily saith,
Sleep, the poplar whispereth,
Soft and deep!
Filmy floats the wild woodbine,
Jonquil, jacinth, jessamine,
Float and flow.
Sleeps the water wild and wan,
As in far off Toltecan
Mexico.
See, upon the sun-dial,
Waves the midnight's misty pall,
Waves and wakes.
As, in tropic Timbuctoo,
Water beasts go plashing through
Lilied lakes!
Alliteration is a splendid source of failure in this sort of poetry, and
adjectives like lissom, filmy, weary, weird, strange, make, or ought to
make, the rejection of your manuscript a certainty. The poem should, as
a rule, seem to be addressed to an unknown person, and should express
regret and despair for circumstances in the past with which the reader is
totally unacquainted. Thus: