Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837/The Evening Star
87
THE EVENING STAR.
h, loveliest! that through my casement gleaming,
Bringeth thy native heaven along with thee,
Touching with far-off light that lovelier dreaming,
Which but for that, all earthly else would be.
The smoke is round the housetops slowly wreathing,
Until upgathered in one gloomy cloud,
It rises like the city’s heavy breathing,
Material, dense, the sunshine’s spreading shroud.
Night knows not silence, for that living ocean
Pants night and day with its perpetual flow,
Stirring the unquiet air with restless motion,
From that vast human tide which rolls below.
Trouble and discontent, and hours whose dial
Is in the feverish heart which knows not rest;
These give the midnight’s sinking sleep denial,
These leave the midnight’s dreaming couch unprest.
But thou, sweet Star, amid the harsh and real,
The cares that harass night with thoughts of day,
Dust bring the beautiful and the ideal,
Till the freed spirit wanders far away.
Then come the lofty hope—the fond remembrance,
All dreams that in the heart its youth renew,
Till it doth take, fair planet, thy resemblance,
And fills with tender light, and melts with dew.
What though it be but a delicious error,
The influence that in thy beauty seems,
Still let love—song—and hope—make thee their mirror,
Oh, life and earth, what were ye without dreams!