'When Dead is Day'

I love the quiet night, when earth,Shackled in iron chains of sleep,Scarce draws her respirations deep;For then I weighJust what this world is worth,When dead is day.

It is not in the night alone,And darkness, evil things have power:Their foreheads greet the noonday hourWith brazen face,Vice flaunts it on a throneI’ the market-place.

Undeafened by humanity's low bass,I hear the music of the spheresToo high attuned for mortal earsTo e'er perceiveWithout night's listening-space,And I believe.For revelations come when darkness falls:'Tis then I feel an echo in my heartThrob with a voice—that voice which says, 'Thou art,Though something, nothing,And within my hallsSubject, yet king.'

O Immortality! from mortals hid,Is what thou art, and what thou hast in store,When we set foot upon that further shore.Grasp we 'forever,'Or is, beneath the coffin-lid,'Forever, never'?