Albert Pike

1809-1891 / USA

Lines To A Lady

The wind is low as woman's sigh,
The myriad stars are shining bright,
The pale moon, like a lustrous eye,
Smiles calmly on the brow of night;
And close beside her beams one star
Of love, like woman's deep devotion,
Of one shrined thought the worshipper;
Pouring its mellow light afar,
Mingled with moonbeams, on the prairie's waveless ocean.

All sounds of mortal sense are still;
The earth is like a weary child,
That, having played and wept its fill,
Sleeps calmly in the forest wild;
For she, with all her myriad brood
Of fiery passions, sleeps like heaven;
While not a murmur stirs the wood,
Or the green prairie's solitude,
Nor over heaven's face one restless cloud is driven.

And moon, and star, and planet shine
Upon one home of happiness,
Flooding it with a light divine,
As though they would its inmates bless,
Where, by the night-breeze gently fanned,
Like giants calmly slumbering,
Old gnarled oaks, a sturdy band,
Around that lonely dwelling stand,
And o'er its roof their wild, grotesque arms fondly fling.
This pleasant night will soonbe gone,
As vanishes a sunny dream;
'Tis but a bubble, floating on
Old Time's resistless, rapid stream.
Yet shall thy sky, sweet lady, be
For ever cloudless, clear, and bright,
As this that now I joy to see
In all its glittering mystery,
Over thy home of peace wheeling its rapid flight.
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