| Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907. | | | An Italian Garden (1886)
I. Florentine May | | By A. Mary F. Robinson-Darmesteter (1857–1944) |
| | | STILL, still is the Night; still as the pause after pain; | |
| Still and as dear; | |
| Deep, solemn, immense; veiling the stars in the clear | |
| Thrilling and luminous blue of the moon—shot atmosphere; | |
| Ah, could the Night remain! | 5 |
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| Who, truly, shall say thou art sullen or dark or unseen, | |
| Thou, O heavenly Night, | |
| Clear o’er the valley of olives asleep in the quivering light, | |
| Clear o’er the pale-red hedge of the rose, and the lilies all white | |
| Down at my feet in the green? | 10 |
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| Nay, not as the Day, thou art light, O Night, with a beam | |
| Far more dear and divine; | |
| Never the noon was blue as the tremulous heavens of thine, | |
| Pulsing with stars half seen, and vague in a pallid shrine, | |
| Vague as a dream. | 15 |
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| Night, clear with the moon, filled with the dreamy fire | |
| Shining in thicket and close, | |
| Fire from the lamp in his breast that the luminous fire-fly throws; | |
| Night, full of wandering light and the song, and the blossoming rose, | |
| Night, be thou my desire! | 20 |
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| Night, Angel of Night, hold me and cover me so— | |
| Open thy wings! | |
| Ah, bend above and embrace!—till I hear in the one bird that sings | |
| The throb of thy musical heart in the dusk, and the magical things | |
| Only the Night can know. | 25 | | | |
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