HESPERUS

Down in the street the last late hansoms go
Still westward, but with backward eyes of red

The harlot shuffles to her lonely bed;

The tall policeman pauses but to throw
A flash into the empty portico;
Then he too passes, and his lonely tread

Links all the long-drawn gas-lights on a thread

And ties them to one planet swinging low.

O Hesperus! O happy star! to bend
O'er Helen's bosom in the trancèd west—

To watch the hours heave by upon her breast

And at her parted lip for dreams attend:
If dawn defraud thee, how shall I be deem'd.

Who house within that bosom, and am dreamed?