When Thou Sleepest

When thou sleepest, lulled in night,
Art thou lost in vacancy?
Does no silent, inward light,
Softly breaking, fall on thee?
Does no dream on quiet wing
Float a moment mid that ray,
Touch some answering mental string,
Wake a note and pass away?

When thou watchest, as the hours
Mute and blind are speeding on,
O'er that rayless path, where lowers
Muffled midnight, black and lone;
Comes there nothing hovering near,
Thought or half reality,
Whispering marvels in thine ear,
Every word a mystery,

Chanting low an ancient lay,
Every plaintive note a spell,
Clearing memory's clouds away,
Showing scenes thy heart loves well?
Songs forgot, in childhood sung,
Airs in youth beloved and known,
Whispered by that airy tongue,
Once again are made thine own.

Be it dream in haunted sleep,
Be it thought in vigil lone,
Drink'st thou not a rapture deep
From the feeling, 'tis thine own?
All thine own; thou need'st not tell
What bright form thy slumber blest;—
All thine own; remember well
Night and shade were round thy rest.

Nothing looked upon thy bed,
Save the lonely watch-light's gleam;
Not a whisper, not a tread
Scared thy spirit's glorious dream.
Sometimes, when the midnight gale
Breathed a moan and then was still,
Seemed the spell of thought to fail,
Checked by one ecstatic thrill;

Felt as all external things,
Robed in moonlight, smote thine eye;
Then thy spirit's waiting wings
Quivered, trembled, spread to fly;
Then th'aspirer wildly swelling
Looked, where mid transcendency
Star to star was mutely telling
Heaven's resolve and fate's decree.

Oh! it longed for holier fire
Than this spark in earthly shrine;
Oh! it soared, and higher, higher,
Sought to reach a home divine.
Hopeless quest! soon weak and weary
Flagged the pinion, drooped the plume,
And again in sadness dreary
Came the baffled wanderer home.

And again it turned for soothing
To th'unfinished, broken dream;
While, the ruffled current smoothing,
Thought rolled on her startled stream.
I have felt this cherished feeling,
Sweet and known to none but me;
Still I felt it nightly healing
Each dark day's despondency.