EARTH'S NIGHT

Sombre,

Sombre is the night, the stars’ light is dimmed

With smoky exhalations of the earth,

Whose ancient voice is lifted on the wind

In ceaseless elegies and songs of tears.

O earth, I hear thee mourning for thy dead!

Thou art waving the long grass over thy graves;

Murmuring over all thy resting children,

That have run and wandered and gone down

Upon thy bosom. Thou wilt mourn for him

Who looketh now a moment on these stars,

And in the moving boughs of this dark night

Heareth the murmurous sorrow of thy heart.