The Dark Night Will Not Speak, In Vain, In Vain Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

The dark night will not speak, in vain in vain
My prayer to the silent stars
The silent stars hand-maidens of the night
And favored courtiers by his airy throne:
The dark night will not speak
The dark will not tell what in its womb
In dark and shady satin full concealed
With prudent folds unto the curious eye
Lies. Perhaps new stars begot
When the first dews of morn refreshed
The green where Night made love and lay
Where the engendering occurred and the seed fell?
Perhaps a race more fairer than marble white
Or warmer than the delicacies of ebony?
I do not know.
The skies as silent as the stars remain
And will not their secret non-conceal.
Alone, alone I paced the welcome avenues
Amidst the trees that rustled not in Hastings
The Gardens that rude bastions overhang
And many a tale their trees could tell and yet speak not:
Vain hope I had of coaxing some night star
To speak; or else some welcome tree a recent friend
What the night-stars had told it to reveal:
Vain hope! The trees spoke not nor rustled.
And the night into its long, long obliquy
Without a word, without a syllable continued.
Below the bastioned fortress the sea-waves
Silent with tiptoed rustlings to the shore
In language I knew not spoke to the rocks.