The night—(I sing by night—sometimes an owl,
And now and then a nightingale)—is dim,
And the loud shriek of sage Minerva’s fowl
Rattles around me her discordant hymn:
Old portraits from old walls upon me scowl—
I wish to Heaven they would not look so grim;
The dying embers dwindle in the grate—
I think too that I have sat up too late: