Midnight

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

　　

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’Tis midnight o’er the dim mere’s lonely bosom, Dark, dusky, windy midnight: swift are driven The swelling vapours onward: every blossom Bathes its bright petals in the tears of heaven. Imperfect, half-seen objects meet the sight, The other half our fancy must pourtray; A wan, dull, lengthen’d sheet of swimming light Lies the broad lake: the moon conceals her ray, Sketch’d faintly by a pale and lurid gleam Shot thro’ the glimmering clouds: the lovely planet Is shrouded in obscurity; the scream Of owl is silenc’d; and the rocks of granite Rise tall and drearily, while damp and dank Hang the thick willows on the reedy bank. Beneath, the gurgling eddies slowly creep, Blacken’d by foliage; and the glutting wave, That saps eternally the cold grey steep, Sounds heavily within the hollow cave. All earth is restless–from his glossy wing The heath-fowl lifts his head at intervals; Wet, driving, rainy, come the bursting squalls; All nature wears her dun dead covering. Tempest is gather’d, and the brooding storm Spreads its black mantle o’er the mountain’s form; And, mingled with the rising roar, is swelling, From the far hunter’s booth, the blood hound’s yelling. The water-falls in various cadence chiming, Or in one loud unbroken sheet descending, Salute each other thro’ the night’s dark womb; The moaning pine-trees to the wild blast bending, Are pictured faintly thro’ the chequer’d gloom; The forests, half-way up the mountain climbing, Resound with crash of falling branches; quiver Their aged mossy trunks: the startled doe Leaps from her leafy lair: the swelling river Winds his broad stream majestic, deep, and slow.

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