THE TRYSTING HOUR.
Reading edition
BY MRS. R. S. NICHOLS.
I.
Beside my casement's trailing vines, By meditation led, I sit, when Sleep his pinion waves Above each drooping head: When all the shadowy forms that haunt The bright abodes on high, Steal softly forth, in silvery troops From chambers of the sky.
II.
As down the midnight air they float Upon celestial cars, I turn me to a steady light That gleams among the stars; A prophet-light it is to me, And shadows forth the hour That calls my spirit there to meet A seraph in its bower.
III.
Beside my casement still I sit, When goes my spirit forth, With waving plume, and rustling wing, Up toward the blazing North: While solemnly the stars look down, And solemnly they seem To shed a fair and brilliant light On this, my waking dream.
IV.
And high each everlasting hill Lifts up its crownéd head, Like some tall, stately cenotaph For nations of the dead! The broad, blue river rolls as free As waters in that clime Which bends above these waves, that flow Like some subduing rhyme.
V.
Beside my casement's trailing vines The zephyr finds me still, When matin-hymns are gushing forth From bird, and bee, and rill; For not until the morning star, That herald of the dawn, Has flashed upon the eastern skies, Are my sad eyes withdrawn.
VI.
I weary of the brilliant day, The warm, sunshiny air. And cling unto the solemn night, When nature kneels at prayer; For then my spirit wanders forth, With a resistless power, And, with its kindred spirit, holds The midnight Trysting-Hour.