Sonnet (At midnight, when the robes of darkness, when)

At midnight, when the robes of darkness, when
The belt of snow have girded all the earth,
I wander forth, in passion and in pain,
From her, who gave that pain and passion birth.
The damp-cold north wind lifts its voices loud—
Its many voices, Maker! unto thee;
And bursting thro' a broken silvery cloud,
The moon looks down with tenderness on me.
Pour forth thy light from thy o'erflowing chalice
Of radiant beams, and let them nightly flow
Over the crooked path I tread below:—
I am no thief, no minister of malice,
No runaway, no conscience-smitten—no!—
To love and Lada all my grief I owe.