Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain, Views wilds and swelling floods, And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires, The gradual dusky veil. While Spring shall pour his showers, as of the wont, While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves, And rudely rends thy robes: So long, regardful of thy quiet rule, Thy gentlest influence own, And hymn thy favorite name! William Collins (1721-1759] "IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM AND FREE” IT is a beauteous evening, calm and free; The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in his tranquility; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea; Listen! the mighty Being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder-everlastingly. Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here, If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, Evening Melody Thy nature is not therefore less divine: 1275 William Wordsworth (1770-1850] GLOAMING SKIES to the West are stained with madder; The sough of the pines is growing sadder; Skies to the East are streaked with golden; Air is sweet with the breath of clover; EVENING MELODY O THAT the pines which crown yon steep O that yon fervid knoll might keep, Pale poplars on the breeze that lean, O that your golden stems might screen That yon white bird on homeward wing And now in blue air vanishing Like snow-flake lost in ocean, Beyond our sight might never flee, Pellucid thus in saintly trance, Thus mute in expectation, What waits the earth? Deliverance? She dreams of that "New Earth” divine, She sings "Not mine the holier shrine, Aubrey Thomas de Vere [1814-1902] "IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING” IN the cool of the evening, when the low sweet whispers waken, When the laborers turn them homeward, and the weary have their will, When the censers of the roses o'er the forest aisles are shaken, Is it but the wind that cometh o'er the far green hill? For they say 'tis but the sunset winds that wander through the heather, Rustle all the meadow-grass and bend the dewy fern; They say 'tis but the winds that bow the reeds in prayer together, And fill the shaken pools with fire along the shadowy burn. In the beauty of the twilight, in the Garden that He loveth, They have veiled His lovely vesture with the darkness of a name! Through His Garden, through His Garden, it is but the wind that moveth, No more! But O the miracle, the miracle is the same. At Perivale 1277 In the cool of the evening, when the sky is an old story, Slowly dying, but remembered, ay, and loved with passion still. . . . Hush! . . . the fringes of His garment, in the fading golden glory Softly rustling as He cometh o'er the far green hill. Alfred Noyes [1880 TWILIGHT SPIRIT of Twilight, through your folded wings I catch a glimpse of your averted face, And rapturous on a sudden, my soul sings "Is not this common earth a holy place?" Spirit of Twilight, you are like a song That sleeps, and waits a singer,-like a hymn That God finds lovely and keeps near Him long, Till it is choired by aureoled cherubim. Spirit of Twilight, in the golden gloom Of dreamland dim I sought you, and I found A woman sitting in a silent room Full of white flowers that moved and made no sound. These white flowers were the thoughts you bring to all, Oн the grave and gloomy quiet at the closing of the day! When the sun has long gone down, Not in splendors of his own, But behind a veil of vapor vaguely vanishing away; With a wraith of filmy cloud, Creased and wrinkled, to enshroud All the glow that he should give us at the closing of the day. Oh the stern and stolid quiet at the closing of the day! When the purple furrows gleam Cold and steely, and the team Loiters homeward, and the hawthorn blooms in blood-drops, not in may; When the harvest months are done, And the autumn rains begun, And the black earth reeks with odors, at the closing of the day. Oh the dim and solemn quict at the closing of the day! And the wet birds come and go Through the hedges, and white winter is already on its way; When the smoke of smouldering tares, Loosely borne on lagging airs, Frets the nostrils with its savor, at the closing of the day. Oh the grim and ghostly quiet at the closing of the day! When the cattle cease to move, And the trees stand close, above, And the mounds about the churchyard lie unshadowed in the gray; When the soul that dwells alone Finds a sadness like its own In the heart of Mother Nature, at the closing of the day. Arthur Joseph Munby [1825 SONG TO THE EVENING STAR STAR that bringest home the bee, And sett'st the weary laborer free! Are sweet as hers we love. Come to the luxuriant skies, Whilst the landscape's odors rise, |