European Elegies/Winter/Night

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32.NIGHT


The day has gone; and with the night
The gathering gloom confounds the eye;
With all its torches set alight
The moon is marching up the sky.
In dusk I sit, forsaken quite,
No loving heart, no friend is by—
Only a song of far delight
Comes throbbing through my memory.

Who's there? What face peers through the leaves?
Who floats before me but to fade?
What white-clad figure flits and weaves
A haunting horror through the shade?—
'Tis but the night my eyes deceives,
And yet my spirit is afraid.


From the Finnish of Eino Leino.