Night
Source of witness transcribed: The Daily Crescent (New Orleans, Louisiana)
Date of witness transcribed: 21 November 1851
Notes about this poem: "Night" was printed in at least 151 newspapers during the nineteenth century. It can be found using ID 532811 in this table of most widely-reprinted poems.
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- The day is done, and the darkness
- Falls from the wings of night,
- As a feather is wafted downward
-
From an eagle in his flight.
- I see the lights of the village
- Gleam through the rain and the mist,
- And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me,
-
That my soul cannot resist—
- A feeling of sadness and longing,
- That is not akin to pain,
- And resembles sorrow only
-
As the mist resembles the rain.
- Come, read to me some poem,
- Some noble and heartfelt lay,
- That shall soothe this restless feeling,
-
And banish the thoughts of day.
- Not from the bards sublime,
- Not from the bards sublime,
- Whose distant footsteps echo
-
Through the corridors of time.
- For, like strains of material music,
- Their mighty thoughts suggest
- Life’s endless toil and endeavor;
-
And to night I long for rest.
- Read from some humble poet,
- Whose songs gush from his heart
- As showers from the clouds of summer,
-
Or tears from the eye-lids start.
- Who through longs days of labor,
- And nights devoid of ease,
- Still heard in his soul the music
-
Of wonderful melodies.
- Such songs have power to quiet
- The restless pulse of care,
- And come like the benediction
-
That follow after prayer.
- Then read from the treasured volume
- This poem of thy choice,
- And lend to the rhyme of the poet
-
The beauty of thy voice.
- And the night shall be filled with music
- And the cares that infest the day
- Shall fold up their tents like the Arabs,
- And silently pass away.