With remnants which the sunset glories leave,
Woven with fancies of a duskier dye.
The fair soft twilight, when the maiden steals
To the deep shadow of some garden tree;
And to the silence her young heart reveals,
Breathing her dreams in pleasant reverie.
The tender twilight, when the soul yields up
Its love and sweetness like a rich perfume,
Filling with tenderness—as fills the cup
Of the night-flowers with dew drawn from their bloom.
The twilight hour, that stores the poet's heart
With fine conceptions of all loveliness;
That stirs him with a love from day apart,
Full of high spiritual thought and holiness.
EIGHT.
At length the twilight fades away,
And the warm hues are slowly blent
With deepening evening; and the play
Of shadows in the orient
Has ceased, and stars have come instead;
And over all the robe of night
Like a rich-jeweled manta's spread—
So beautifully soft and bright.
Now seeks the lover his young bride,
And with her gazes on the sky;
Yet, standing by her beating side,
Sees more stars in her moist clear eye;
And sweeter light on her pure face
Than in the half-orbed silver moon;
And in her twining arms more grace
Than in the white-rose branch of June.
The bliss of young love's rosy dream
Beneath the summer evening skies,
Ah, what could purchase? Not a gleam
Of the much fabled Paradise—
Nor promise of an Indian isle,
Where ever-constant summers smile!
