Read the poem: “Midnight”

by James Russell Lowell

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American Literature – American Poetry – James Russell Lowell
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Midnight

The moon shines white and silent
  On the mist, which, like a tide
Of some enchanted ocean,
  O’er the wide marsh doth glide,
Spreading its ghost-like billows
  Silently far and wide.

A vague and starry magic
  Makes all things mysteries,
And lures the earth’s dumb spirit
  Up to the longing skies:
I seem to hear dim whispers,
  And tremulous replies.

The fireflies o’er the meadow
  In pulses come and go;
The elm-trees’ heavy shadow
  Weighs on the grass below;
And faintly from the distance
  The dreaming cock doth crow.

All things look strange and mystic,
  The very bushes swell
And take wild shapes and motions,
  As if beneath a spell;
They seem not the same lilacs
  From childhood known so well.

The snow of deepest silence
  O’er everything doth fall,
So beautiful and quiet,
  And yet so like a pall;
As if all life were ended,
  And rest were come to all.

O wild and wondrous midnight,
  There is a might in thee
To make the charmèd body
  Almost like spirit be,
And give it some faint glimpses
  Of immortality!

< < < Memorial Verses To Lamartine
Monna Lisa > > >

American Literature – American Poetry – James Russell Lowell

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by James Russell Lowell

Midnight

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