Lyrics of Evening

NOT in the light is sweetest music made;
But when the evening shadows, tardy, staid,
Sleep-flowers are bringing,
And the loves are sitting round,
Their eyes upon the ground,
And the dreams are singing.

A SOUND as of the falling leaves
While yet the summer dies,
When the tired wind no longer grieves,
And only the silence sighs;

A grace as of the mist that clings
In tops of faded trees,
Or where the gray-beard thistle swings
In pastures of the bees;

A scent as of the wilding rose
Fond Summer’s heart must keep,
In dreamland of the under-snows
Sweetening all her sleep;

A fair face out of memory
And love’s long brooding made,
Too fair for rude reality,
Too real for a shade; —

Are these thy gift, lone Winter-star,
Hung ’twixt the night and day ?
They come with thee, and from afar;
Chance up thy golden way.

SOFT follower of the early star,
Once more I feel you drawing near.
Come! for my evening is not come
Till you are here.

You make it — as yourself is made —
Of loveliest, sweet, untroubled things,
Fled with love’s day. I feel love’s night
Fall from your wings.

TWILIGHT down the west
Wanders once again;
With a gentler guest,
Singing in her train.

Harkens every breast,
Every heart and brain:
Peace, oh, peace is best !
Runs the sweet refrain.

So the world is blest,
Joy is not, nor pain;
Love, itself learns rest
Of the summer rain.

THREE sisters by the Sacred Spring
Sit, soft-eyed, and sing;
When the sunset colors die,
And the moon comes up the sky,
’T is to that melody
Under the Sacred Tree.
It follows the stars along,
And they, too, shine to the song,
The evensong, of the sisters three,
Love and Hope and Memory.

THE moon is up, the stars are out,
The wind is in the naked tree;
And up and down and all about
Pipes the winter minstrelsy.

Weird shapes whisk here and there,
Betwixt the boles and bushes brown;
They skim along the ledges bare,
They dance the jaggy gulches down.

The moon is up, the stars are out,
Pipes on the winter minstrelsy;
They wave at us, the ghostly rout,
Beck my merry mates and me.

Aha, and had they heart’s desire;
The phantom rabble — if they knew
The fling and crackle of the fire
The sibilation of the brew!