Evening.
Sweet sounds, so variable in tone at eve,1
Swell through the liquid air from fold and field,2
And what, a moment gone, I could believe3
Were children’s shouts, to woodland echoes yield.4
The sun’s last rays die on the gleaming pane—5
A glorious death ; and all the rosy air6
Is deadened to a marble hue again,7
With veins and arteries shewing blue and bare.8
Anon soft shades of twilight steal around,9
Usurping all the spheres of lingering day ;10
And sense of sight and motion of sweet sound11
Fail, as the night pursues its wonted way ;12
While memory, which no darkness can efface,13
Slips in between, and thus supplies their place.14