The Night Watch

Beneath the trees with heedful step and slow     At night I go,     Fearful upon their whispering to break     Lest they awake     Out of those dreams of heavenly light that fill     Their branches still     With a soft murmur of memoried ecstasy.     There 'neath each tree     Nightlong a spirit watches, and I feel     His breath unseal     The fast-shut thoughts and longings of tired day,     That flutter away     Mothlike on luminous soft wings and frail     And moonlike pale.     There in the flowering chestnuts' bowering gloom     And limes' perfume     Wandering wavelike through the moondrawn night     That heaves toward light,     There hang I my dark thoughts and deeper prayers;     And as the airs     Of star-kissed dawn come stirring and o'er-creep     The ford of sleep,     Thy shape, great Love, grows shadowy in the East,     Thine accents least     Of all those warring voices of false morn:     And oh, forlorn     Thy hope, thy courage vanishing, thine eyes     Sad with surprise.     Oh, with the dawn I know, I know how vain     Is love that's fain     To beat and beat against her obstinate door.     For as once more     It groans, she passes out not heeding me,     Nay, will not see:--     As when a man, rich and of high estate,     Sees at his gate     (Or will not see) a famishing poor wretch,     Whose longings fetch     Old anger from his pain-imprisoning breast,     Till sad despair his anger puts to rest.