Leslie Pinckney Hill, "In the Still Night" (1917)
In the Still Night
IN the still night there comes to me
The blessed boon of liberty.
From all the cares that chafed and choked,
The spirit is at last unyoked
To seek her heaven, as she ought,
On sturdy wings of fearless thought.
Then come the dreams which through the day
The moil of living shuts away .
Then can the soul her fountains fill,
While all the universe is still,
From streams of quietness that rise
Out of the hills of Paradise.
And I can tell the day was meant
For some design beneficent,
For sweet-imagined sounds I hear,
And forms of beauty hover near
To win me to the perfect trust
That life is good, and God is just,
And permeates His world whereof
The essence and the end is love.