Night, A Phantasy

Night! the horrible wizard Night!
    The dumb and terrible Night
Hath drawn his circle of magic, round
Over the sky, and over the ground,
        Without a sound.
Ah me, what woeful phantoms rise,
With ice-cold hands and pitiless eyes,
As stars grow out of the summer skies,
Tangible things to mortal sight,
Under the hands of the wizard Night!

Night! the mystical prophet, Night!
    The haunted and awful Night!
With the trail of his garment's shadowy fall,
Soundless and black as a funeral pall,
Now enters his dread laboratory.
A wan, and faint, and wavering glory
Shines from a veiled lamp somewhere hidden.
        Like a lily in a grave:
And things unholy, and things forbidden,--
Hands that have long been the earth-worm's prey,
And shrouded faces out of the clay.
    Rise and fill the enchanted cave
    With a pale and deathly light,--
    The haunted and awful Night!

Night! the abhorred magician Night!
    The black astrologer Night!
Night is the world!--I shiver with fright:--
The air is full of evil things,
The coil and glitter of snaky rings,
And, the tremor of vast invisible wings,
    That are not heard but felt:
They touch my hair, my hand, my cheek,
They mope and mouth, but they never speak
    To utter their awful history.
    Oh, when will the darkness break and melt,
Like blocks of ice on a golden reef,
And little by little, as leaf by leaf,
In light and color and form increased,
The rose of morning blooms in the east,--
    The old yet ever new mystery!
And I fall on my knees to worship the light
That casts out the evil demon of Night,
And hallows with blossoms, like prayers, the way
    Of another new day.