  The livelong night I lie awake, While all the world is slumbering, And weary I am numbering The hours which on the stillness break; The hours, which give to others balm, The blessed balm of soothing sleep, My mind in cruel torture keep, And yet demand a perfect calm. The hours whose loss I oft bewail At close of busy workingday, Now gladly I hear pass away, And the approaching morning hail. And yet their woe hath recompense, Which sleeping mortals do not know, For gentle voices come and go, With solace to the weary sense. From distant meadows comes the sound Of cowbells, stirred at intervals, And to my heart with joy recalls The age when in their clang I found Suggestions of a fairy land, When Elfins rang their silver bells In flow’ry meads and shady dells, Or on the quiet moonlit strand. I hear the cricket’s autumn song, The ceaseless music of the night, It tells about the summer’s flight, And of its life, so full and strong, Of memories with love aglow, In youth and manhood’s fuller life, Of vanished days with glory rife, Whose joys I ne’er again shall know. And far away the river sings Its lullaby out to the sea, A sense of rest comes over me, Perhaps sweet sleep at last it brings. |
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