midnight
Hast thou not made the rough , coarse palm into a sanctuary and pavilion wherein the dying hand may shelter ? Hast thou not taught the loud and boisterous voice the new song of tenderness and pity , whispering like a dove ? Within thy school the rude and harsh have learned the nurse 's gentle art , and the world 's swaggering warriors serve as acolytes before thy shadowy altar . The peasant 's cottage owes to thee its transformation to cathedral splendour , the censers gently swinging when thou sayest the soul 's great mass , at even , or at midnight , or at the cock-crowing , or in the morning . Thou hast classed together the hovel and the palace , glowing with equal solemn grandeur , so that no man can tell the one from the other when the crape upon the door betokens that thou tarriest there . Thou hast promoted sodden sleep to be the most awful metaphor of time . Thou hast stripped wealth and grandeur , leaving them but a shroud , and hast clothed obscurity and poverty with their eternally suggestive robe ; thou hast affirmed , and thou preserved , that grim average of life which greatness refuses , which littleness fears , to realize .