Solemnly, mournfully,
Dealing its dole,
The Curfew Bell
Is beginning to toll.
Cover the embers,
And put out the light;
Toil comes with the morning,
And rest with the night.
Dark grow the windows,
And quenched is the fire;
Sound fades into silence,--
All footsteps retire.
No voice in the chambers,
No sound in the hall!
Sleep and oblivion
Reign over all!
II.
The book is completed,
And closed, like the day;
And the hand that has written it
Lays it away.
Dim grow its fancies;
Forgotten they lie;
Like coals in the ashes,
They darken and die.
Song sinks into silence,
The story is told,
The windows are darkened,
The hearth-stone is cold.
Darker and darker
The black shadows fall;
Sleep and oblivion
Reign over all.
The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems 1845
- Carillon
- The Belfry of Bruges
- A Gleam of Sunshine
- The Arsenal at Springfield
- Nuremberg
- The Norman Baron
- Rain in Summer
- To A Child
- The Occultation of Orion
- The Bridge
- To The Driving Cloud
- The Day is Done
- Afternoon in February
- To An Old Danish Songbook
- Walter von der Vogelweid
- Drinking Song
- The Old Clock on the Stairs
- The Arrow and the Song