THE moon at midnight quenched her vaporous light,
Leaving the stars but faintly bright
Like tapers that burn ill;
And in the fragrant bosom of the night
The summer breezes round the garden creep,
Now moving and now still,
Nursing the buds their care has laid to sleep;
Or tip-toe softly to my window-sill
And whisper through the room,
To tell that close at hand
The lilies-of-the-valley stand,
And lilacs are in bloom.

A breathing night,—no ray, no beam,—
But shadowy stillness over everything.
I listen to the flooding of a stream
That 'mid the joyous secrets of the spring
Subdues his murmuring;
And in the silence cool
Huddles his waves, till, at a bound,
I hear as in a gleam of sound
The gathered waters plunging to their pool.

Once more the silence; then the sound again!
I cannot say how long I stood
And listened to that velvet flood;
Perhaps the stream poured lethe on my brain—
Displaced the stars—for in their train
I saw the French Cathedrals looming by,
Like citadels that beaconed on the night
Or swinging urns that scattered golden light
In the surrounding sky.
Chartres, Beauvais, Rouen—I could mark
Each Gothic lantern of the mind
That, kindling in the ages dark,
Rose, flamed and left behind
The sacred shell of a mysterious ark,
The treasure and the solace of mankind.

Voices they have,—a language of their own
That floats in arches, domes and spires;
And many a traveler and pilgrim young,
Wandering unconscious and alone,
Has heard the accents of the ancient choirs
Still echoing in their avenues of stone
From men who wrought and dreamed and sung
And fought and prayed in that forgotten tongue.

Again my eyes upon the night were turned.
The central darkness bloomed, and—robed in state—
While her great works about her burned—
Sate France enthronèd and incoronate!

But ah! the vision fades: a sky of lead
Has drunk the apparition. In such pain
As breaks the rest of one whose love is dead
I wake to greet the vacant world again.
The garden is a blank. Unquiet birds
Are warbling gently in the rain.
Sweet are their voices, desolate the words
That from their little throats they pour,
Chanting, like choristers, a requiem:
'Beauvais and Chartres and Rouen yet remain;
Rheims is no more;
And Amiens is fading like thy dream.
Alas, when all is done
What shall the dayspring find to shine upon?'