WHEN o'er yon forest solitudes
The sky of autumn evening broods--
A heaven whose warp, but palely bright,
Shot through with woofs of crimson light,
So slowly wanes with waning day--
Whatever thoughts, pathetic, sweet
Are wont to fawn round Memory's feet,
Pleading with soft and sacred stress
To be upcaught in tenderness;
Whatever thoughts like these there are,
Choose the weird hour 'twixt sun and star,
Of failing breeze, and whisperous sea,
And that still heaven o'er leaf and lea,
To come--each thought a temperate bliss--
Embracing the calmed soul, to kiss
The pallor of old cares away.
O twilight sky of mellow gray,
Flushed with faint lines! O voiceful trees,
Lilting low ballads to the breeze!
O all ye mild amenities
Wherewith the solemn eve is rife,
At this strange hour 'twixt death and life;
The death of beauteous day, whose last
Dim tints are almost overpast,
Who lives alone in odors blent,
Of every subtlest element,
Borne on a fairy rain-like dew,
Exhaled, not dropped from out the blue;
The life of stars that one by one
Are mustering o'er the sunken sun,
And wafts of vague earth-perfume blown
Up to the pine-tree's quivering cone,
From heath-flowers hidden in cool grass,--
Like spells of delicate balm, ye pass
Into my wearied heart and brain.
What room for any sordid pain
Within me now? Ah! Nature seems
Through something sweeter than all dreams,
To woo me; yea, she seems to speak
How closely, kindly, her fond cheek
Rested on mine, her mystic blood
Pulsing in tender neighborhood,
And soft as any mortal maid,
Half veilèd in the twilight shade,
Who leans above her love to tell
Secrets almost ineffable!
