As star by star leaps out above,
As twilight deepens into night,
As round me cluster those I love,
And eye meets eye in glances bright,
I feel that earth itself may be
Lit up with heaven's own radiancy.
Night on the Ganges.
How beautiful the glorious night would be,
How much more lovely than the garish day,
If thus for ever she arrayed herself!
The moon is up—high on the cloudless sky,
Over the towering mast she brightly gleams,
Pale, like a lady sick with silent grief,
Showering her beams on everything around,
And clear defining every rope and spar
Of this our gallant bark, whose shadow falls
Enormous, on the smooth reflecting wave.
In this pure light the eye with ease discerns
Each distant object that it sees by day,
And freed from every fault that sunbeams show.
It seems, indeed, a clear meridian noon
Reft of its heat, its turmoil, and its strife,
Its busy wasting cares, its stunning noise,
Its idle flouting glare, and scorching winds.
Naught now disturbs the stillness of the scene—
The holy stillness—save the cricket's song
That lulls each weary sense to pleasant sleep
By shrill monotony, and the night-bird's lay.
Anon that lay is hushed. The fishes leap
Up in the clear moonlight from out the wave,
Then fall again and raise a sullen splash;
The huge unwieldy porpoise rolling out,
