It is a lovely eve. Meek Twilight now
Begins her gentle, but too short-lived, reign.
The evening star glows in her radiant brow ;
The painted clouds, slow rising from the west,
Her robes of state ; her golden sandals press
The verge of heaven. It is a lovely eve.
How different from the morn, so lately seen!
Then all was life, and joy, and melody.
The sportive birds sang to the rising dawn,
And to the quickened sense the perfumed air
Seemed doubly fragrant, while the dewy grass
Glittered like Fancy’s fairy-work ; – the sun
Looked on it longer, and the tints so brave
Like the gay dreams of youth dissolved in air.
Now all is calm and still. No more the groves
Echo the songsters’ cheerful, various music.
Naught breaks the silence but the frog’s rude croak
Discordant, jarring from the distant pool.
Yet say, is not such contemplative hour,
When all around breathes peace, more dear to thee
Than all the transient splendors of the morn?
But see! the sun, long sunk beneath the west,
Spreads his last glories o’er the evening cloud.
How many eyes, that mark his setting ray,
Shall never see his rising! Even so,
Father! for so it seemeth good to Thee.
The longest day that man must dwell on earth,
How short, how doubtful! Yet in this brief space
We toil, and strive, and sigh, and are content.
The twilight now has closed ; but all the scene
Of wonders is not ended. Crowning all,
The mystic Night, with all her train of worlds,
Appears sublime in beauty. Fancy now
Escapes from earth, and soars beyond the stars.
Dear sister, so let our short day be spent,
That, when our sun is set, its parting beams
May shine on years yet distant; and when Time
Has whelmed us in the wreck of all that’s gone,
Our rising may be joyous!
(Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham)
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