Another day in sable vesture clad,
    All drear with new blown pleasures blighted,
    Comes blindly groping through the twilight sad,
    As one in moonless mists benighted. 
    O!  Day unhappy! could oblivion roll
    Its slumberous billows o’er my shrinking soul,
    Thee scarce I could, e’en then, forget: 
    A life, bereft of light, no memory need
    To tell of night that ne’er to morning leads,
    Of day that is forever set.

    From yonder sky the noonward sun was torn,
    Ere day dawn’s rosy hues had banished;
    A starless midnight blotted out the morn,
    Ere childhood’s dewy joys had vanished. 
    No slow paced twilight ushered in the night;
    A spangled web, the Heavens were swept from sight;
    The full moon fled and never waned;
    And all of Earth that’s beautiful and fair. 
    Became as shadows in the empty air—­
    A boundless, blackened blank remained!

    I heard the gates of night, with sullen jar,
    Close on the cheerful day forever;
    Hope from my sky sank like the evening star,
    Which finds in darkness, zenith never,
    For scarce she knew, blithe offspring of the day,
    How there to shine, where night held boundless sway;
    And shapes of beauty, grace and bloom,
    And fair-formed joys that once around me danced,
    Bewildered grew, where sunbeams never glanced,
    And lost their way in that wide gloom.

    Pensylla, o’er me many sunless years
    Have flown, since last the beams of heaven,
    The soft ascent of morn through smiles and tears,
    The sweet descent of dreamy even—­
    Or sight of wood and fields in green arrayed,
    Vernal resplendence or Autumnal shade,
    Or Winter’s gloom or Summer’s blaze;
    Bird, beast or works that trophy man’s abode,
    Or he divine, the image of his God,
    Met my rapt gaze.

    Look, gentle guide!  Thou see’st the imperial sun
    Forth sending far his ambient glory,
    O’er laughing fields and frowning highlands dun,
    O’er glancing streams and woodlands hoary. 
    In orient clouds he steeps his amber hair,
    With beams far slanting through the flaming air,
    Bids Earth, with all her hymning sound, declare
    The praise of everlasting light. 
    On my bared head I felt his pitying ray,
    He loves to shine on my benighted way;
    But ah, Pensylla! he brings to me no day—­
    Nor yet his setting, deeper night.

    Prime gift of God, that veil’st His sovereign throne,
    And dost of Him in sense remind me—­
    Blest light of Heaven, why hast thou from me flown? 
    To these sad shades, why hast resigned me? 
    On pinions of surpassing beauty borne,
    When Nature hails the glad advance of morn,
    In thine unsullied loveliness. 
    Thou com’st; but to my darkened eyes in vain—­
    My night, e’en in the noon of thy domain,
    Yields not to thee, since joy of thine again
    Can ne’er my dayless being bless.