THE wide Creation now is hush’d in sleep,
And undisturb’d repose pervades the deep;
While yon bright Moon pursues her starry way,
And gilds the scene with one unclouded ray;
Now on the brink of some dark mountain hoar
The shades of Night, shriek to the wave’s deep roar,
And, in the gloom of some sequester’d wood,
Join their hoarse murmurs to the falling flood;
And now, e’en now, in some bright flow’ry vale,
Angelic choirs symphonious swell the gale,
Celestial voices on the ear of Night
Breathe sounds ineffable of pure delight;
And the smooth cadence of melodious streams
With full perfection gilds the fairy dreams.
At this still time, this awful midnight hour,
Black melancholy reigns in all her power,
And in some Convent’s loneliest utmost bound
With sacred steps treads consecrated ground.
See sad Cecilia, in her life’s first bloom,
Torn from the world to dwell in cloister’d gloom;
And when the deep-ton’d hollow-sounding bell
Bids the sad Nun at midnight leave her Cell;
As it’s last echoes in the torrents fall,
The holy Sisters tread the solemn Hall;
The sacred hymns from their melodious tongues
All rise to Heaven to join th’ angelic songs;
Then fair Cecilia to the tombs repairs,
Her sighs are incense sweeten’d by her tears;
Serenely low she treads midst scenes of death,
While the low wind hoarse scowls along the heath,
Her mourning robes float graceful on the breeze,
Lost in the gloom of dark surrounding trees,
Her snow-white arms uplifted to the skies,
While Heav’n’s own image brightens in her eyes;
While round her stalk the spirits of the dead,
Unmov’d she stands, for all her fears are fled;
She seems prepar’d to take her early flight,
And meet with joy these phantoms of the night.
But ah! behold on yon tremendous steep,
Where the dark Tower o’erhangs the gloomy deep,
The wretched Maniac flies with horrid screams,
While her rack’d brain is filled with death-like dreams;
Yes, on this fatal, this much-hated shore,
She adds her wailings to the Ocean’s roar;
For, in it’s cruel and relentless wave,
An aged Father found a billowy grave,
And the last gulph which clos’d him in it’s rest
Tore Reason’s spark from Julia’s anguish’d breast.
Those eyes, once lighten’d by its genial beam,
Glare now on all in frenzy’s wildest dream;
And the sweet music of that tuneful voice;
Whose lays would make woods, hills, and dales rejoice,
Now in loud screams is heard from rock to rock,
And howling echo murmurs long the shock;
See the last frenzy now has seiz’d her brain,
Now seas shall toil, and winds shall storm in vain:
Madd’ning she plunges from the awful height.
Again she rises to the Moon’s pale light,
Then sinks for ever, to awake no more,
And her last shriek reverb’rates on the shore.
(Mary Abel Clinckett)
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Based on Topics: World Poems, Night Poems, Light Poems, Mind Poems, Sadness Poems, Time Poems, Death & Dying Poems, Nature Poems, Fairness Poems, Dreams Poems, Sleep PoemsBased on Keywords: symphonious, erhangs, deep-ton, hollow-sounding, reverb