Music in the Night

WHEN stars pursue their solemn flight,
Oft in the middle of the night,
A strain of music visits me,
Hushed in a moment silverly,—
Such rich and rapturous strains as make
The very soul of silence ache
With longing for the melody;

Or lovers in the distant dusk
Of summer gardens, sweet as musk,
Pouring the blissful burden out,
The breaking joy, the dying doubt;
Or revellers, all flown with wine,
And in a madness half divine,
Beating the broken tune about;

Or else the rude and rolling notes
That leave some strolling sailors’ throats,
Hoarse with the salt sprays, it may be,
Of many a mile of rushing sea;
Or some high-minded dreamer strays
Late through the solitary ways,
Nor heeds the listening night, nor me.

Or how or whence those tones be heard,
Hearing, the slumbering soul is stirred,
As when a swiftly passing light
Startles the shadows into flight;
While one remembrance suddenly
Thrills through the melting melody,—
A strain of music in the night.

Out of the darkness burst the song,
Into the darkness moves along:
Only a chord of memory jars,
Only an old wound burns its scars,
As the wild sweetness of the strain
Smites the heart with passionate pain,
And vanishes among the stars.

– Harriet Prescott Spofford (1835-1921)