Little Poems in Prose

contrary effects, I am always puzzled and alarmed by it. Oh Night, Oh refreshing shadows! You are for me the signal of an internal festival, you are deliverance from anguish. In the solitude of plains, in the stony labyrinths of a great city, twinkling of stars or outbursting of lamps, you are the fire-work of the Goddess Liberty. Twilight, how sweet thou art and tender! The rosy lights which linger still on the horizon like the death-spasm of Day trampled by the victorious car of Night; the torch-like flames which stain with their dull red the expiring glo- ries of the setting sun; the heavy curtains which some invisible hand draws from the depths of the East:—these are but imitations of all the complex feelings which struggle within the heart of man in the solemn hours of his life. Or lone like liken thee unto one of those strange dresses that dancing girls wear, where a dark transparent gauze lets glimmer the slain splendours of a shining skirt, as through a black present pierces the delicious past, and the vacillating stars of gold and silver with which it is sown represent those flames of fancy which do not truly kindle save under the deep mourning of Night.