| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
| |
| The World’s Death-Night |
| | | James Chapman Woods |
| |
| |
| I THINK a stormless night-time shall ensue | |
| Unto the world, yearning for hours of calm: | |
| Not these the end,—nor sudden-closing palm | |
| Of a God’s hand beneath the skies we knew, | |
| Nor fall from a fierce heaven of fiery dew | 5 |
| In place of the sweet dewfall, the world’s balm, | |
| Nor swell of elemental triumph-psalm | |
| Round the long-buffeted bulk, rent through and through. | |
| But in the even of its endless night, | |
| With shoreless floods of moonlight on its breast, | 10 |
| And bath of healing mist about its scars, | |
| An instant sums its circling years of flight, | |
| And the tir’d earth hangs crystall’d into rest, | |
| Girdled with gracious watchings of the stars. | |
| |
|
|
|
