A Summer Night

How sweet the summer gales of night,
That blow when all is peaceful round,
As if some spirit's downy flight
Swept silent through the blue profound!

How sweet at midnight to recline
Where flows their cool and fragrant stream!
There half repeat some glowing line,
There court each wild and fairy dream;

Or idly mark the volumed clouds
Their broad deep mass of darkness throw,
When, as the moon her radiance shrouds,
Their changing sides with silver glow;

Or see where, from that depth of shade,
The ceaseless lightning, faintly bright,
In silence plays, as if afraid
To break the deep repose of night;

Or gaze on heaven's unnumbered fires,
While dimly-imaged thoughts arise,
And Fancy, loosed from earth, aspires
To search the secrets of the skies;

What various beings there reside;
What forms of life to man unknown,
Drink the rich flow of bliss, whose tide
Wells from beneath the eternal throne;

Or life's uncertain scenes revolve,
And musing how to act or speak,
Feel some high wish, some proud resolve
Throb in the heart, or flush the cheek.

Meanwhile may reason's light, whose beam
Dimmed by the world's oppressive gloom,
Sheds but a dull unsteady gleam,
In this still hour its rays relume.

Thus oft in this still hour be mine
The light all meaner passions fear,
The wandering thought, the high design,
And soaring dreams to virtue dear.