Page:Poems, now first collected, Stedman, 1897.djvu/28

 NOCTURNE

silent world is sleeping,

And spirits hover nigh,

With downward pinions keeping

Our love from mortal eye,

Nor any ear of Earth can hear

The heart-beat and the sigh.

Now no more the twilight bird

Showers his triple notes around;

In the dewy paths is heard

No rude footfall's sound.

In the stillness I await

Thy coming late,

In the dusk would lay my heart

O life! O rarest hour!

When the dark world onward rolls,

And the fiery planets drift,

Then from our commingled souls 8