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| BIRD of the solemn midnight hour! | |
| Thy Poet’s emblem be; | |
| If arms might be the Muses’ dower, | |
| His crest were found in thee: | |
| Though flippant wits thy dulness blame, | 5 |
| And Superstition fondly frame | |
| Fresh omens from thy song;— | |
| With me thou art a favourite bird, | |
| Of habits, hours, and haunts, preferr’d | |
| To day’s more noisy throng. | 10 |
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| Are not thy habits grave and sage, | |
| Thyself beseeming well, | |
| Like hermit’s in his hermitage, | |
| Or nun’s in convent cell? | |
| Secluded as an anchorite, | 15 |
| Thou spend’st the hours of garish light | |
| In silence, and alone: | |
| ’Twere well if nuns and hermits spent | |
| Their days in dreams as innocent, | |
| As thine, my bird! have flown. | 20 |
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| Are not the hours to thee most dear, | |
| Those which my bosom thrill? | |
| Evening—whose charms my spirit cheer, | |
| And Night, more glorious still? | |
| I love to see thee slowly glide | 25 |
| Along the dark wood’s leafy side, | |
| On undulating wing, | |
| So noiseless in thy dream-like flight, | |
| Thou seem’st more like a phantom-sprite | |
| Than like a living thing. | 30 |
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| I love to hear thy hooting cry, | |
| At midnight’s solemn hour, | |
| On gusty breezes sweeping by, | |
| And feel its utmost power: | |
| From Nature’s depths it seems to come, | 35 |
| When other oracles are dumb; | |
| And eloquent its sound, | |
| Asserting Night’s majestic sway, | |
| And bearing Fancy far away | |
| To solitudes profound;— | 40 |
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| To wild, secluded haunts of thine, | |
| Which hoary eld reveres; | |
| To ivied turret, mould’ring shrine, | |
| Gray with the lapse of years; | |
| To hollow trees by lightning scath’d; | 45 |
| To cavern’d rocks, whose roots are bath’d | |
| By some sequester’d stream; | |
| To tangled wood, and briery brake, | |
| Where only Echo seems awake | |
| To answer to thy scream. | 50 |
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| While habits, hours, and haunts, so lone | |
| And lofty, blend with thee, | |
| Well mayst thou, bird of night! be prone | |
| To touch thought’s nobler key; | |
| To waken feelings undefin’d, | 55 |
| And bring home to the Poet’s mind, | |
| Who frames his vigil-lay, | |
| Visions of higher musings born, | |
| And fancies brighter than adorn | |
| His own ephem’ral day. | 60 |
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