Night

'Tis solemn darkness; the sublime of shade; Night, by no stars nor rising moon relieved; The awful blank of nothingness arrayed, O'er which my eye-balls roll in vain, deceived. Upward, around, and downward I explore, E'en to the frontiers of the ebon air, But cannot, though I strive, discover more Than what seems one huge cavern of despair. Oh, Night, art thou so grim, when, black and bare Of moonbeams, and no cloudlets to adorn, Like a nude Ethiop 'twixt two houris fair, Thou stand'st between the evening and the morn? I took thee for an angel, but have wooed A cacodaemon in mine ignorant mood.