 | The poetical works of Edward Rowland Sill |  |
125
EVENING
The Sun is gone: those glorious chariot-wheels
Have sunk their broadening spokes of flame, and left
Thin rosy films wimpled across the West,
Whose last faint tints melt slowly in the blue,
As the last trembling cadence of a song
Fades into silence sweeter than all sound.
Have sunk their broadening spokes of flame, and left
Thin rosy films wimpled across the West,
Whose last faint tints melt slowly in the blue,
As the last trembling cadence of a song
Fades into silence sweeter than all sound.
Now the first stars begin to tremble forth
Like the first instruments of an orchestra
Touched softly, one by one.—There in the East
Kindles the glory of moonrise: how its waves
Break in a surf of silver on the clouds!—
White, motionless clouds, like soft and snowy wings
Which the great Earth spreads, sailing round the Sun.
Like the first instruments of an orchestra
Touched softly, one by one.—There in the East
Kindles the glory of moonrise: how its waves
Break in a surf of silver on the clouds!—
White, motionless clouds, like soft and snowy wings
Which the great Earth spreads, sailing round the Sun.
O silent stars! that over ages past
Have shone serenely as ye shine to-night,
Unseal, unseal the secret that ye keep!
Is it not time to tell us why we live?
Through all these shadowy corridors of years
(Like some gray Priest, who through the Mysteries
Led the blindfolded Neophyte in fear),
Time leads us blindly onward, till in wrath
Tired Life would seize and throttle its stern guide,
And force him tell us whither and how long.
But Time gives back no answer—only points
With motionless finger to eternity,
Which deepens over us, as that deep sky
Darkens above me: only its vestibule
Glimmers with scattered stars; and down the West
A silent meteor slowly slides afar,
As though, pacing the garden-walks of heaven,
Some musing seraph had let fall a flower.
Have shone serenely as ye shine to-night,
Unseal, unseal the secret that ye keep!
Is it not time to tell us why we live?
Through all these shadowy corridors of years
(Like some gray Priest, who through the Mysteries
Led the blindfolded Neophyte in fear),
Time leads us blindly onward, till in wrath
Tired Life would seize and throttle its stern guide,
126
But Time gives back no answer—only points
With motionless finger to eternity,
Which deepens over us, as that deep sky
Darkens above me: only its vestibule
Glimmers with scattered stars; and down the West
A silent meteor slowly slides afar,
As though, pacing the garden-walks of heaven,
Some musing seraph had let fall a flower.
| The poetical works of Edward Rowland Sill | |