WEDDING-NIGHT.

At night, with shaded eyes, the summer moon

In tender meditation downward glances

At the dark earth, far-set in dim expanses,

And, welcomer than blazoned gold of noon,

Down through the air her steady lights are strewn.

The breezy forests sigh in moonlit trances,

And the full-hearted poet, waking, fancies

The smiling hills will break in laughter soon.

Oh thus, thou gentle Nature, dost thou shine

On me to-night. My very limbs would melt,

Like rugged earth beneath yon ray divine,

Into faint semblance of what they have felt:

Thine eye doth color me, O wife, O mine,

With peace that in thy spirit long hath dwelt!