Night

By E. G. A. Holmes

Night comes and stars their wonted vigils keep
In soft unfathomable depths of sky:
In mystic veil of shadowy darkness lie
The infinite expanses of the deep,—
Save where the silvery paths of moonlight sleep,
And rise and sink for ever dreamily
With the majestic heaving of the sea.
Night comes, and tenfold gloom where dark and steep,
Into black waters of a land-locked bay
The cliffs descend: there never tempest raves
To break the awful slumber; far below
Glimmer the foamy fringes white as snow;
And sounds of strangled thunder rise alway,
And midnight moanings of imprisoned waves.