Chimes

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    Sweet chimes! that in the loneliness of night
        Salute the passing hour, and in the dark
        And silent chambers of the household mark
        The movements of the myriad orbs of light!
    Through my closed eyelids, by the inner sight,
        I see the constellations in the arc
        Of their great circles moving on, and hark!
        I almost hear them singing in their flight.
    Better than sleep it is to lie awake
        O'er-canopied by the vast starry dome
        Of the immeasurable sky; to feel
    The slumbering world sink under us, and make
        Hardly an eddy,--a mere rush of foam
        On the great sea beneath a sinking keel.