Page:Poems, now first collected, Stedman, 1897.djvu/28

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NOCTURNE

The silent world is sleeping,
And spirits hover nigh,
With downward pinions keeping
Our love from mortal eye,
Nor any ear of Earth can hear
The heart-beat and the sigh.


Now no more the twilight bird
Showers his triple notes around;
In the dewy paths is heard
No rude footfall's sound.
In the stillness I await
Thy coming late,
In the dusk would lay my heart
Close to thine own, and say how dear thou art!


O life! O rarest hour!
When the dark world onward rolls,
And the fiery planets drift,
Then from our commingled souls

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