The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems: Hesperus

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 tranc�d 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?

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