Thine are the hours to love endeared, 

 And summoned by thy accents weird, 

 What wild regrets what tender pain, 

 Recall my youthful dreams again, 

 As floating down the shadowy years, 

 That old refrain fond memory hears-~ 

 Whip-poor-will ! 



The garish day inspires thee not ; 

 But hid in some deep-shaded grot, 

 Thou like a sad recluse dost wait 

 The silver hours inviolate. 

 When every harsher sound is flown, 

 And groves and glen are thine alone. 

 Whip-poor-will. 



Then, when the rapt, voluptuous night 

 Pants in the young moon's tender light, 

 And wood, and cliffs, and shimmering streams 

 Are splendid in her argent beams 

 How thrills the lover's heart to hear 

 Thy loud staccato, liquid-clear, 

 Whip- poor- will. 



Whence comes the iterated phrase, 

 That to the wondering ear conveys 

 Half-human sounds, yet cheats the sense 

 With vagueness of intelligence, 

 And, like a wandering voice of air, 

 Haunts the dim fields, we know not where? 

 Whip-poor-will. 



Now while the white moonlight fills all the void 'twixt me and heaven, 

 and all the trees are flung upon the grass in lifelike silhouettes, and a 

 gentle wind mixes with the starlight and moonlight going through the 

 trees caressingly like a lover's whisper, and the whip-poor-will flutes his 

 tearful note so that the valley hears him from the hilltops, while the 

 birds in their nests are so asleep they hear not these notes of his wooing, 

 while this radiant mood lies on my spirit like heaven's exceeding calm, I 

 think I will say, "Good-night, God keep you, good-night ;" and I will pull 

 my cloak about me and lie down on this mosaic of moonlight and shadow, 

 and with my prayer haling toward God through the long moonlit 

 reaches (for no prayer misses its way, not one, thank God for that, my 

 heart) , I will lie down and go to sleep ; and so I will say good-night 



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