Yet as her thoughts dilating rose,
     Took glory in the great repose,
     And over every postured form
     Spread lava-like and brooded warm, —

     And fixed on every frozen face
     Beheld the record of its race,
     And in each chiselled feature knew
     The stormy life that once blushed thro’; —

     The ever-present of the past
     There written; all that lightened last,
     Love, anguish, hope, disease, despair,
     Beauty and rage, all written there; —

     Enchanted Passions! whose pale doom
     Is never flushed by blight or bloom,
     But sentinelled by silent orbs,
     Whose light the pallid scene absorbs. —

     Like such a one I pace along
     This City with its sleeping throng;
     Like her with dread and awe, that turns
     To rapture, and sublimely yearns; —

     For now the quiet stars look down
     On lights as quiet as their own;
     The streets that groaned with traffic show
     As if with silence paved below;

     The latest revellers are at peace,
     The signs of in-door tumult cease,
     From gay saloon and low resort,
     Comes not one murmur or report: 

     The clattering chariot rolls not by,
     The windows show no waking eye,
     The houses smoke not, and the air
     Is clear, and all the midnight fair.

     The centre of the striving world,
     Round which the human fate is curled,
     To which the future crieth wild, —
     Is pillowed like a cradled child.

     The palace roof that guards a crown,
     The mansion swathed in dreamy down,
     Hovel, court, and alley-shed,
     Sleep in the calmness of the dead.

     Now while the many-motived heart
     Lies hushed—­fireside and busy mart,
     And mortal pulses beat the tune
     That charms the calm cold ear o’ the moon

     Whose yellowing crescent down the West
     Leans listening, now when every breast
     Its basest or its purest heaves,
     The soul that joys, the soul that grieves; —

     While Fame is crowning happy brows
     That day will blindly scorn, while vows
     Of anguished love, long hidden, speak
     From faltering tongue and flushing cheek

     The language only known to dreams,
     Rich eloquence of rosy themes! 
     While on the Beauty’s folded mouth
     Disdain just wrinkles baby youth;

     While Poverty dispenses alms
     To outcasts, bread, and healing balms;
     While old Mammon knows himself
     The greatest beggar for his pelf;

     While noble things in darkness grope,
     The Statesman’s aim, the Poet’s hope;
     The Patriot’s impulse gathers fire,
     And germs of future fruits aspire; —

     Now while dumb nature owns its links,
     And from one common fountain drinks,
     Methinks in all around I see
     This Picture in Eternity; —