Mild Splendor of the various-vested Night!
…Mother of wildly-working visions! hail!
I watch thy gliding, while with watery light
…Thy weak eye glimmers through a fleecy veil;
And when thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud
…Behind the gather’d blackness lost on high;
And when thou dartest from the wind-rent cloud
…Thy placid lightning o’er th’ awakened sky.
Ah, such is Hope! As changeful and as fair!
…Now dimly peering on the wistful sight;
Now hid behind the dragon-wing’d Despair:
…But soon emerging in her radiant might
She o’er the sorrow-clouded breast of Care
…Sails, like a meteor kindling in its flight.
The Bard on the Hill 