Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Selected Sonnets. VI. London after Midnight

Henry Ellison (1811–1880)

SILENCE broods o’er the mighty Babylon,

And Darkness, his twin-brother, with him keeps

His solemn watch; the wearièd city sleeps,

And Solitude—strange contrast! muses on

The fate of man, there, whence the crowd anon

Will scare her with life’s tumult! the great deeps

Of human thought are stirless, yet there creeps,

As ’twere, a far-off hum, scarce heard, then gone,

On the still air: ’tis the heart doth move

And beat at intervals, soon, from its sleep,

To start refreshed. O Thou Who rul’st above,

Be with it in its dreams, and let it keep,

Awake, the spirit of pure peace and love,

Which Thou breath’st thro’ it now, so still and deep!