BELOVÈD! in this holy hush of night,
I know that thou art looking to the South,
Fair face and cordial brow bathed in the light
Of tender Heavens, and o'er thy delicate mouth
A dewy gladness from thy dark eyes shed;
O eloquent eyes! that on the evening spread
The glory of a radiant world of dreams
(The inner moonlight of the soul that dims
This moonlight of the sense), and o'er thy head,
Thrown back, as listening to a voice of hymns,
Perchance in thine own spirit, violet gleams
From modest flowers that deck the window-bars,
While the winds sigh, and sing the far off streams,
And a faint bliss seems dropping from the stars.
O! pour thine inmost soul upon the air
And trust to heaven the secrets that recline
In the sweet nunnery of thy virgin breast;
Speak to the winds that wander everywhere,--
And sure must wander hither--the divine
Contentment, and the infinite, deep rest
That sway thy passionate being, and lift high
To the calm realm of Love's eternity,
The passive ocean of thy charmèd thought;
And tell the aerial element to bear
The burden of thy whispered heart to me,
By fairy alchemy of distance wrought
To something sacred as a saintly prayer,
A spell to set my nobler nature free.
