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1849–1887

V. In the Night.

Emma Lazarus

Let us go in: the air is dank and chill With dewy midnight, and the moon rides high O'er ghostly fields, pale stream, and spectral hill. This hour the dawn seems farthest from the sky

So weary long the space that lies between That sacred joy and this dark mystery Of earth and heaven: no glimmering is seen, In the star-sprinkled east, of coming day,

Nor, westward, of the splendor that hath been. Strange fears beset us, nameless terrors sway The brooding soul, that hungers for her rest, Out worn with changing moods, vain hopes’ delay,

With conscious thought o'erburdened and oppressed. The mystery and the shadow wax too deep; She longs to merge both sense and thought in sleep.

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V. In the Night. · Emma Lazarus · Poetry Cove