The shepherd's night-song

Now arched dark boughs hang dim and still;

The deep dew glistens up the hill;

Silence trembles. All is still.

Now the sweet siren of the woods,

Philomel, passionately broods,

Or, darkling, hymns love's wildest moods.

Danaë, fainting in her tower,

Feels a sudden sun swim lower,

Gasps beneath the starry shower.

Venus in the pomegranate grove

Flutters like a fluttering dove

Under young Adonis' love.

Leda longs until alight

In the reeds those wings of white

She hears beat the upper night.

Golden now the glowing moon,

Diana over Endymion

Downward bends as in a swoon.

Wherefore, since the gods agree

Youth is sweet and Night is free

And Love pleasure, should not we?

Shepherds all, maidens fair,

Fold your flocks up, for the air

'Gins to thicken, and the sun

Already his great course hath run.

Sweetest slumbers,

And soft silence, fall in numbers

On your eyelids! So farewell:

Thus'll end my evening's knell.