The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar/A Summer's Night

A SUMMER'S NIGHT

The night is dewy as a maiden's mouth, The skies are bright as are a maiden's eyes, Soft as a maiden's breath the wind that flies Up from the perfumed bosom of the South. Like sentinels, the pines stand in the park; And hither hastening, like rakes that roam, With lamps to light their wayward footsteps home, The fireflies come stagg'ring down the dark.