Poem by Madison Julius Cawein

Nocturne

A disc of violet blue,
Rimmed with a thorn of fire,
The new moon hangs in a sky of dew;
And under the vines, where the sunset's hue
Is blent with blossoms, first one, then two,
Begins the cricket's choir.

Bright blurs of golden white,
And points of silvery glimmer,
The first stars wink in the web of night;
And through the flowers the moths take flight,
In the honeysuckle-colored light,
Where the shadowy shrubs grow dimmer.

Soft through the dim and dying eve,
Sweet through the dusk and dew,
Come, while the hours their witchcraft weave,
Dim in the House of the Soul's-Sweet-Leave,
Here in the pale and perfumed eve,
Here where I wait for you.

A great, dark, radiant rose,
Dripping with starry glower,
Is the night, whose bosom overflows
With the balsam musk of the breeze that blows
Into the heart, as each one knows,
Of every nodding flower.

A voice that sighs and sighs,
Then whispers like a spirit,
Is the wind that kisses the drowsy eyes
Of the primrose open, and, rocking, lies
In the lily's cradle, and soft unties
The rosebud's crimson near it.

Sweet through the deep and dreaming night,
Soft through the dark and dew,
Come, where the moments their magic write,
Deep in the Book of the Heart's-Delight,
Here in the hushed and haunted night,
Here where I wait for you.

1. Response
2. The Three Urgandas
3. Face to Face
4. Lalage
5. Gertrude

Eugene O'Neill Nocturne ("The sunset gun booms out in hollow roar") 1910

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