I.

’Tis the middle watch of a summer’s night— The earth is dark but the heavens are bright; Nought is seen in the vault on high But the stars, and the moon, and the cloudless sky, And the flood which rolls its milky hue, A river of light on the welkin blue. The moon looks down on old Cronest, She mellows the shades on his shaggy breast, And seems his huge gray form to throw In a silver cone on the wave below; His sides are broken by spots of shade, By the walnut bough and the cedar made, And through their clustering branches dark Glimmers and dies the firefly’s spark— Like starry twinkles that momently break Through the rifts of the gathering tempest’s rack.