Ii

When midnight comes it brings a moon: A scent is strewn Of honey and wild-thorns broadcast Beneath the stars. When I have passed Under dark cedars, solemn pines, Through dodder-drowned petunias, Corn-flower and the columbine, To where azaleas, choked with grass, And peonies, like great wisps, shine, I reach banked honeysuckle vines, Piled deep and trammeled with the gourd And morning-glory--one wild hoard Of rich aroma--where the seat, The rustic bench, where oft we sat,-- Now warped and old with rain and heat,-- Still stands upon its mossy mat: And here I rest; and then--a word I seem to hear; A soft word whispered in my ear; Her voice it seems; no thing is near; I look around:--I have but heard The plaintive note of some lost bird Trickle through night,--awakened where, 'Neath its thick lair of twisted twigs, The jarring and incessant grigs Hum:--dream-drugged so, the haunted air Makes all my soul as heavy as Dew-poppied grass.