Thine are the hours to love endeared, 
And summoned by thy accents weird, 
What wiid 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 ts flown, 
And groves and glen are thine alone. 
Whip-poor-wiil. 
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 lixe 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 | 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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