NOCTURNE

by: Julia Caroline Ripley Dorr (1825-1913)

      BIRD beneath the midnight sky
      As on my lonely couch I lie,
      I hear thee singing in the dark,--
      Why sing not I?
       
      No star-gleams meet thy wakeful eye;
      No fond mate answers to thy cry;
      No other voice, through all the dark,
      Makes sweet reply.

      Yet never sky-lark soaring high
      Where sun-lit clouds rejoicing lie,
      Sang as thou singest in the dark,
      Not mute as I!
       
      O lone, sweet spirit! tell me why
      So far thy ringing love-notes fly,
      While other birds, hushed by the dark,
      Are mute as I?
       
      No prophecy of morn is nigh;
      Yet as the somber hours glide by,
      Bravely thou singest in the dark --
      Why sing not I?

"Nocturne" is reprinted from The Century (Vol. 32, issue 6), Oct., 1886.

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