XVII.

That was an hour to send its fadeless trace Down life’s far-sweeping tide! A dim, wild night, Like sorrow, hung upon the soft moon’s face, Yet how my heart leap’d in her blessed light! The shepherd’s light--the sailor’s on the sea-- The hunter’s homeward from the mountains free, Where its lone smile makes tremulously bright The thousand streams!--I could but gaze through tears. Oh! what a sight is heaven, thus first beheld for years!