midnight
But his thoughts were different from what they once were when he gazed on their glistening faces . His soul-pinions had kissed the earth , and become fouled by contact with a grosser element ; and heavy with a weltering weight of woe , that they could not soar aloft and hover over the casements of angelic homes , to rest at last on the glory-bright hills of heaven . `` I only know their dream was vain , And that they woke to find it past , And when by chance they met again , It was not as they parted last . His was not faith that lightly dies ; For truth and love as clearly shone In the blue heaven of his soft eyes As the dark midnight of her own . And therefore heaven alone can tell What are his living visions now , But hers -- the eye can read too well The language written on her brow . '' PHEBE CAREY . The yearly examination and exhibition of Cedar Hill Seminary was approaching , and teachers and pupils were busied with preparations in order to pass the ordeal creditably to themselves and to the institution .