| |
| SOMBRE and rich, the skies, | |
| Great glooms, and starry plains; | |
| Gently the night wind sighs; | |
| Else a vast silence reigns. | |
| |
| The splendid silence clings | 5 |
| Around me: and around | |
| The saddest of all Kings, | |
| Crown’d, and again discrown’d. | |
| |
| Comely and calm, he rides | |
| Hard by his own Whitehall. | 10 |
| Only the night wind glides: | |
| No crowds, nor rebels, brawl. | |
| |
| Gone, too, his Court: and yet, | |
| The stars his courtiers are: | |
| Stars in their stations set; | 15 |
| And every wandering star. | |
| |
| Alone he rides, alone, | |
| The fair and fatal King: | |
| Dark night is all his own, | |
| That strange and solemn thing. | 20 |
| |
| Which are more full of fate: | |
| The stars; or those sad eyes? | |
| Which are more still and great: | |
| Those brows, or the dark skies? | |
| |
| Although his whole heart yearn | 25 |
| In passionate tragedy, | |
| Never was face so stern | |
| With sweet austerity. | |
| |
| Vanquish’d in life, his death | |
| By beauty made amends: | 30 |
| The passing of his breath | |
| Won his defeated ends. | |
| |
| Brief life, and hapless? Nay: | |
| Through death, life grew sublime. | |
| Speak after sentence? Yea: | 35 |
| And to the end of time. | |
| |
| Armour’d he rides, his head | |
| Bare to the stars of doom; | |
| He triumphs now, the dead, | |
| Beholding London’s gloom. | 40 |
| |
| Our wearier spirit faints, | |
| Vex’d in the world’s employ: | |
| His soul was of the saints; | |
| And art to him was joy. | |
| |
| King, tried in fires of woe! | 45 |
| Men hunger for thy grace: | |
| And through the night I go, | |
| Loving thy mournful face. | |
| |
| Yet, when the city sleeps, | |
| When all the cries are still, | 50 |
| The stars and heavenly deeps | |
| Work out a perfect will. | |
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