Poems / by James G. Percival [electronic text]

Often, When at Night Delaying.

OFTEN, when at night delaying, Where the winding river flows, On the silent waters playing How the star of beauty glows; In the clear wave brightly sparkling, Brightly as the love-lit eye, Now again its beams are darkling, As the clouds athwart it fly: With a soft and tender feeling Then I whisper out my song, While the mellow brook is stealing Silently the sand along.

There is in that twinkling planet More than all the stars can boast, And my fond eye loves to scan it, Like a light-house on a coast, Where the budding spring is ever Pranking out her wooing bowers, And the locks of beauty never Float without a crown of flowers, And her eye is ever straying Round and round with kindling beam, Like her own bright planet playing Sweetly on the silent stream.

Now the star is near the mountain Slowly setting in the west, Shining on a crisping fountain, Or a lakelet's ruffled breast; Now its maiden brightness mingles With the mist that hovers there, Rising from the woody dingles, Like a streaming tress of hair;

Now a form is imaged round it, 'T is the form that I adore, Every charm of earth has crowned it, Fairer beauty never wore: O! how dear that tender feeling, When the rays of beauty play, Where the mellow brook is stealing, Lighted by the moon, away.