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I HOW strange at night to wake | |
And watch, while others sleep, | |
Till sight and hearing ache | |
For objects that may keep | |
The awful inner sense | 5 |
Unroused, lest it should mark | |
The life that haunts the emptiness | |
And horror of the dark! | |
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II How strange the distant bay | |
Of dogs; how wild the note | 10 |
Of cocks that scream for day, | |
In homesteads far remote; | |
How strange and wild to hear | |
The old and crumbling tower, | |
Amidst the darkness, suddenly | 15 |
Take tongue and speak the hour! | |
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III Albeit the love-sick brain | |
Affects the dreary moon, | |
Ill things alone refrain | |
From lifes nocturnal swoon: | 20 |
Men melancholy mad, | |
Beasts ravenous and sly, | |
The robber and the murderer, | |
Remorse, with lidless eye. | |
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IV The nightingale is gay, | 25 |
For she can vanquish night; | |
Dreaming, she sings of day, | |
Notes that make darkness bright; | |
But when the refluent gloom | |
Saddens the gaps of song, | 30 |
Men charge on her the dolefulness, | |
And call her crazed with wrong. | |
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V If dreams or panic dread | |
Reveal the gloom of gloom, | |
Kiss thou the pillowd head | 35 |
By thine, and soft resume | |
The confident embrace; | |
And so each other keep | |
In the sure league of amity | |
And the safe lap of sleep. | 40 |
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