Ode To Night Poem by Robert Alves

To climes that doze in gloom of night,
Lo Phoebus bends his steady rein,
And now he quits the mountain's height,
Now dips into the main:
Round him he scatters the last smiles of day,
And steals with lessening light his golden orb away.

Farewell, resign'd to worlds below,
Whence Indians hail thy wish'd return,
And sea-born breezes whisp'ring blow,
To wake the rosy Morn;
For us even sombre Night has pleasing charms,
And Slumber lulls to rest, and Care with-holds her harms.

Involv'd in robes of dusky brown
Now darkness mounts the steep of heav'n,
And black around her awful throne,
The scowling clouds are driven.
Silence succeeds; save where the chiming song
Of babling brook is heard the moss-grown stones among.

And lo! from yonder loanly tower,
With woeful note, and hideous cry,
The owl laments in woodbine-bower,
A foe to light and joy:
While Philomel, in sylvan shade retir'd,
Warbles her matchless song, thro' every age admir'd.

Now, at the silent hour of night,
Wide o'er the woodland let me rove,
Beneath pale Cynthia's placid light,
Or through the glimmering grove.
No ghastly dread my careless heart invades,
While rapt in musings sweet along the moon-light-glades.

Spectres and apparitions drear,
Where groaning church-yards heaving rise,
Their grisly forms horrific rear,
To Fear's believing eyes.
But o'er the mind let manly Reason reign,
Night shelters no such harms thro' all her dark domain.

And now from cave where Silence dwells,
From couch where lazy Sloth resides,
From ivy-bowers, and hermit-cells,
And vales where Lethe glides,
Night calls her offspring Sleep with soft command,
And bids him shed his dews o'er Britain's happy land.

The power obeys, and steers his way,
Dispensing slumbers as he flies;
Around him dreams in myriads play,
With wings of changeful dyes:
Some to fair Virtue spread the painted plume,
And some to Guilt unfold the horrors of the tomb.

From princely domes of costly state,
Where Care drives slumber from their eyes,
And weary nights afflict the great,
Sleep disappointed flies:
Glad he forsakes Ambition's gilded towers,
For peasant's strawy bed, and peace-frequented bowers.

In yonder humble cot the swain,
Sweet Compensation's pleasure knows,
And all his labour, all his pain,
Endear his soft repose.
Chearful he toils the day, and smiles at Care,
Then hies him to his couch, and sleeps contented there.

Thus grant me, Heaven, a life serene,
Still urging on some fair design,
No buskin'd strutter on the scene,
Nor covetous to shine!
Let useful Labour close my transient days,
If Conscience self approve, not proud of other praise