Of the night-gambols of the moth-winged wind, Flitting a handbreadth, folding up its wings, Its dreamy wings, then spreading them anew, And with an unfelt gliding, like the years, Wafting them to a water-lily bed, Whose shield-like leaves and chalice-bearing arms Hold back the boat from the slow-sloping shore, Far as a child might shoot with his toy-bow. There the long drooping grass drooped to the wave; And, ever as the moth-wind lit thereon, A small-leafed tree, whose roots were always cool, Dipped one low bow, with many sister-leaves, Upon the water's face with a low plash, Lifting and dipping yet and yet again; And aye the water-drops rained from the leaves, With music-laughter as they found their home. And from the woods came blossom-fragrance, faint, Or full, like rising, falling harmonies; Luxuriance of life, which overflows In scents ethereal on the ocean air; Each breathing on the rest the blessedness Of its peculiar being, filled with good Till its cup runneth over with delight: They drank the mingled odours as they lay, The air in which the sensuous being breathes, Till summer-sleep fell on their hearts and eyes. The night was mild and innocent of ill; 'Twas but a sleeping day that breathed low, And babbled in its sleep. The moon at length Grew sleepy too. Her level glances crept Through sleeping branches to their curtained eyes, As down the steep bank of the west she slid, Slowly and slowly But alas! alas! The awful time 'twixt moondown and sunrise! It is a ghostly time. A low thick fog Steamed up and swathed the trees, and overwhelmed The floating couch with pall on pall of grey. The sky was desolate, dull, and meaningless. The blazing hues of the last sunset eve, And the pale magic moonshine that had made The common, strange,--all were swept clean away; The earth around, the great sky over, were Like a deserted theatre, tomb-dumb; The lights long dead; the first sick grey of morn Oozing through rents in the slow-mouldering curtain; The sweet sounds fled away for evermore; Nought left, except a creeping chill, a sense As if dead deeds were strown upon the stage, As if dead bodies simulated life, And spoke dead words without informing thought. A horror, as of power without a soul, Dark, undefined, and mighty unto ill, Jarred through the earth and through the vault-like air. And on the sleepers fell a wondrous dream, That dured till sunrise, filling all the cells Remotest of the throbbing heart and brain. And as I watched them, ever and anon The quivering limb and half-unclosèd eye Witnessed of torture scarce endured, and yet Endured; for still the dream had mastery, And held them in a helplessness supine; Till, by degrees, the labouring breath grew calm, Save frequent murmured sighs; and o'er each face Stole radiant sadness, and a hopeful grief; And the convulsive motion passed away.