The Serenade

The midnight is not more bewildering
To her drowsed eyes, than to her ears, the sound
Of dim, sweet singing voices, interwound
With purl of flute and subtle twang of string,
Strained through the lattice, where the roses cling
And, with their fragrance, waft the notes around
Her haunted senses. Thirsting beyond bound
Of her slow-yielding dreams, the lilt and swing
Of the mysterious delirious tune,
She drains like some strange opiate, with awed eyes
Upraised against her casement, where aswoon,
The stars fail from her sight, and up the skies
Of alien azure rolls the full round moon
Like some vast bubble blown of summer noon.

James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. He was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and the "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and children's poetry respectively. Over his career, Riley authored approximately 1,000 poems, including "Little Orphant Annie" and "The Raggedy Man". His influence extended into the 20th century, and his works continued to be celebrated for their nostalgic and rural themes.

James Whitcomb Riley

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

To The Serenader.

    Tinkle on, O sweet guitar,
        Let the dancing fingers
    Loiter where the low notes are
        Blended with the singer's:
    Let the midnight pour the moon's
        Mellow wine of glory
    Down upon him through the tune's
        Old romantic story!

    I am listening, my love,
        Through the cautious lattice,
    Wondering why the stars above
        All are blinking at us;
    Wondering if his eyes from there
        Catch the moonbeam's shimmer
    As it lights the robe I wear
        With a ghostly glimmer.

    Lilt thy song, and lute away
        In the wildest fashion: -
    Pour thy rippling roundelay
        O'er the heights of passion! -
    Flash it down the fretted strings
        Till thy mad ...

James Whitcomb Riley

The Serenade.

Innocent dreams be thine! The silver night
Is a fit curtain for thy lovely sleep.
The stars keep watch above thee, and the moon
Sits like a brooding spirit up in Heaven,
Ruling the night's deep influences, and life
Hath a hushed pulse, and the suspended leaves
Sleep with their whisperings as if the dew
Were a soft finger on the lip of sound.
Innocent dreams be thine! thy heart sends up
Its thoughts of purity like pearly bells
Rising in crystal fountains, and the sin
That thou hast seen by day, will, like a shade,
Pass from thy memory, as if the pure
Had an unconscious ministry by night.

Midnight - and now for music! Would I were
A sound that I might steal upon thy dreams,
And, like the breathing of my flute, distil
Sweetly upon thy senses. Softly, b...

Nathaniel Parker Willis

The Serenade.

I.

The winds were hushed, and thin and high
    The fleecy clouds were drifting,
And through them as she sailed the sky
    The moon's soft light was sifting.


II.

Beneath her pale and tender ray,
    Its silvery kiss imprinting,
All dew-bedecked each flower and spray
    Like myriad jewels glinting.


III.

Across the lawn there floats the sound
    Of music sweet--entrancing--
'Neath a latticed casement, ivy-bound,
    Where love-lit eyes were glancing.


IV.

The flute and harp and mandolin
    There dulcet notes were blending,
And strains divine from a violin
    In harmony ascending.


V.

Enraptured by the magic spell,
    I lingering stood, and listening,

George W. Doneghy

Moon-Drowned.

'Twas the height of the fete when we quitted the riot,
    And quietly stole to the terrace alone,
Where, pale as the lovers that ever swear by it,
    The moon it 
We stood there enchanted. - And O the delight of
    The sight of the stars and the moon and the sea,
And the infinite skies of that opulent night of
    Purple and gold and ivory!

The lisp of the lip of the ripple just under -
    The half-awake nightingale's dream in the yews -
Came up from the water, and down from the wonder
    Of shadowy foliage, drowsed with the dews, -
Unsteady the firefly's taper - unsteady
    The poise of the stars, and their light in the tide,
As it struggled and writhed in caress of the eddy,
    As love in the billowy breast of a ...

James Whitcomb Riley

That Night

You and I, and that night, with its perfume and glory! -
    The scent of the locusts - the light of the moon;
And the violin weaving the waltzers a story,
    Enmeshing their feet in the weft of the tune,
    Till their shadows uncertain
    Reeled round on the curtain,
    While under the trellis we drank in the June.

Soaked through with the midnight the cedars were sleeping,
    Their shadowy tresses outlined in the bright
Crystal, moon-smitten mists, where the fountain's heart, leaping
    Forever, forever burst, full with delight;
    And its lisp on my spirit
    Fell faint as that near it
    Whose love like a lily bloomed out in the night.

O your glove was an odorous sachet of blisses!
    The breath of your fan was a breeze from Cathay!
An...

James Whitcomb Riley

Serenade.

By the burnished laurel line
Glimmering flows the singing stream;
Oily eddies crease and shine
O'er white pebbles, white as cream.

Richest roses bud or die
All about the splendid park;
Fountains glass a wily eye
Where the fawns browse in the dark.

Amber-belted through the night
Floats the alabaster moon,
Stooping o'er th' acacia white
Where my mandolin I tune.

By the twinkling mere I sing
Where lake lilies stretch pale eyes,
And a bulbul there doth fling
Music at the moon who flies.

With a broken syrinx there,
From enameled beds of buds,
Rises Pan in hoof and hair -
Moonlight his dim sculpture floods.

The pale jessamines have felt
The large passion of her gaze;
See! they part - their glories melt

Madison Julius Cawein