Scottish Poetry Selection
- Nocturne

Here is Walter Wingate's evocative picture of a magical walk at midnight.


        Nocturne

A sense of stolen joy is mine
     To leave the village sleeping,
And with the music of my feet
To wake the echoes down the street,
     Where ne'er a light is peeping.

'Tis fine to hear the steeple clocks
     With weary voice and hollow
Discharge their conscientious twelves
As if they knew within themselves
     Of easier hours to follow.

Beneath the dim poetic moon
     The houses seem enchanted;
Their unromantic yesterday
Is charmed a thousand years away,
     And each is beauty-haunted.

And even the thoughts that come to me
     The strangest shapes are taking,
And smack of dream and shadow too
As if the night would claim her due
     From slumber or from waking!

Return to the Index of Walter Wingate Poems or the General Index of Scottish Poetry



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