Twilight.
Now, as the amber west mists into gray,1
While yet the stern and starry Night is young,2
How the last linnet’s wild impromptu lay3
Rings o’er the fields sweet as a studied song !4
Far sheep-bells, too, a tuneful tinkling keep,5
Whose tiny timeless clappers, never still,6
Bob in amongst the daisies, as the sheep7
Go grazing hillward at their own sweet will.8
Eve’s earliest star hangs underneath the moon,9
And seems a tear the sad-eyed Queen hath shed10
In her divine travail. The night-mists spread11
O’er the gray flats anon ; and Silence soon12
Prevails once more in her primeval home,13
Roofed by the starry night’s stupendous dome.14