Good night! from music’s softest spell
   Go to thy dreams: and in thy slumbers,
Fairies, with magic harp and shell,
   Sing o’er to thee thy own sweet numbers.

Good night! from Hope’s intense desire
   Go to thy dreams: and may to-morrow,
Love with the sun returning, fire
   These evening mists of doubt and sorrow.

Good night! from hours of weary waking
   I’ll to my dreams: still in my sleep
To feel the spirit’s restless aching,
   And ev’n with eyelids closed, to weep.

SONNET

Say thou not sadly, “never,” and “no more,”
But from thy lips banish those falsest words;
While life remains that which was thine before
Again may be thine; in Time’s storehouse lie
Days, hours, and moments, that have unknown hoards
Of joy, as well as sorrow: passing by,
Smiles, come with tears; therefore with hopeful eye
Look thou on dear things, though they turn away,
For thou and they, perchance, some future day
Shall meet again, and the gone bliss return;
For its departure then make thou no mourn,
But with stout heart bid what thou lov’st farewell;
That which the past hath given the future gives as well.

SONNET

Though thou return unto the former things,
Fields, woods, and gardens, where thy feet have strayed
In other days, and not a bough, branch, blade
Of tree, or meadow, but the same appears
As when thou lovedst them in former years,
They shall not seem the same; the spirit brings
Change from the inward, though the outward be
E’en as it was, when thou didst weep to see
It last, and spak’st that prophecy of pain,
“Farewell! I shall not look on ye again!”
And so thou never didst—no, though e’en now
Thine eyes behold all they so loved of yore,
The Thou that did behold them then, no more
Lives in this world, it is another Thou.

SONNET

Like one who walketh in a plenteous land,
By flowing waters, under shady trees,
Through sunny meadows, where the summer bees
Feed in the thyme and clover; on each hand
Fair gardens lying, where of fruit and flower
The bounteous season hath poured out its dower:
Where saffron skies roof in the earth with light,
And birds sing thankfully towards Heaven, while he
With a sad heart walks through this jubilee,
Beholding how beyond this happy land,
Stretches a thirsty desert of gray sand,
Where all the air is one thick, leaden blight,
Where all things dwarf and dwindle,—so walk I,
Through my rich, present life, to what beyond doth lie.

SONNET

Blaspheme not thou thy sacred life, nor turn
O’er joys that God hath for a season lent,
Perchance to try thy spirit, and its bent,
Effeminate soul and base! weakly to mourn.
There lies no desert in the land of life,
For e’en that tract that barrenest doth seem,
Laboured of thee in faith and hope, shall teem
With heavenly harvests and rich gatherings, rife.
Haply no more, music, and mirth and love,
And glorious things of old and younger art,
Shall of thy days make one perpetual feast;
But when these bright companions all depart,
Lay thou thy head upon the ample breast
Of Hope, and thou shalt hear the angels sing above.

SONNET

But to be still! oh, but to cease awhile
The panting breath and hurrying steps of life,
The sights, the sounds, the struggle, and the strife
Of hourly being; the sharp biting file
Of action, fretting on the tightened chain
Of rough existence; all that is not pain,
But utter weariness; oh! to be free
But for a while from conscious entity!
To shut the banging doors and windows wide,
Of restless sense, and let the soul abide
Darkly and stilly, for a little space,
Gathering its strength up to pursue the race;
Oh, Heavens! to rest a moment, but to rest
From this quick, gasping life, were to be blest!

SONNET

Art thou already weary of the way?
Thou who hast yet but half the way gone o’er:
Get up, and lift thy burthen: lo, before
Thy feet the road goes stretching far away.
If thou already faint, who hast but come
Through half thy pilgrimage, with fellows gay,
Love, youth, and hope, under the rosy bloom
And temperate airs, of early breaking day;
Look yonder, how the heavens stoop and gloom,
There cease the trees to shade, the flowers to spring,
And the angels leave thee; what wilt thou become
Through yon drear stretch of dismal wandering,
Lonely and dark? I shall take courage, friend,
For comes not every step more near the end?