Edward Rowland Sill

Summer Night

FROM the warm garden in the summer night
All faintest odors came: the tuberose white
Glimmered in its dark bed, and many a bloom
Invisibly breathed spices on the gloom.
It stirred a trouble in the man's dull heart,
A vexing, mute unrest: "Now what thou art,
Tell me!" he said in anger. Something sighed,
"I am the poor ghost of a ghost that died
In years gone by." And he recalled of old
A passion dead—long dead, even then—that came
And haunted many a night like this, the same
In their dim hush above the fragrant mould
And glimmering flowers, and troubled all his breast.
"Rest!" then he cried; "perturbëd spirit, rest!"