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.