midnight
I have spread out before you the secret musings of many a midnight hour , and I feel that I am responsible for what I have written . May God grant forgivness for the wrong . And thus we part , gentle reader , to toss yet a little longer upon the stream of time , ere its waves and its billows pass over us forever . `` When midnight o'er the moonless skies , Her shades of mimic death has spread , When mortals sleep , when spectres rise ; And nought is wakeful but the dead . No bloodless shape my path pursues ; No shiv ` ring ghost my couch annoys , Visions more sad my fancy views , Visions of dear departed joys , -- The shade of youthful hope is there . ''