OFF THE ISLE AUX COUDRES

The moon, Capella, and the Pleiades Silver the river’s grey uncertain floor; Only a heron haunts the grassy shore; A fox barks sharply in the cedar trees; Then comes the lift and lull of plangent seas, Swaying the light marish grasses more and more Until they float, and the slow tide brims o’er, And then a rivulet runs along the breeze. O night! thou art so beautiful, so strange, so sad; I feel that sense of scope and ancientness, Of all the mighty empires thou hast had Dreaming of power beneath thy palace dome, Of how thou art untouched by their distress, Supreme above this dreaming land, my home.