A Winter Evening.
Lo ! as the marshalling shades of eve invest1
The wide gray earth, and wide wild heavens gray,2
How the cold clouds crowd round the smouldering west,3
To warm them at the embers of the day !4
A while, and through the gathered gloom of night,5
A star-point pierces keenly here and there
;6
And here and there a flickering cottage-light7
Comes out upon the upland bleak and bare.8
Huge and uncouth, the surge of eastern hills9
Swells up the sky, and seems a monstrous ark10
Launched in a sea of gloom. A wailing shrills11
Through the vast void, peopling the hollow dark12
With spirit-voices ; while at times, afar,13
Perfecting God’s great law, drops down a star.14