University of Virginia Library

AT EVENING.

Hark, out of all the neighboring forest hum
The mingled voices of a myriad things,
(A Sound that half is Silence listening)—
Birds, insects loud with summer, brooks that creep
Slow through the dark and flutter in the light
(As if with prison'd wings) and hurry on,
And the low, lazy turning evermore
Of restless leaves unnumber'd, half-asleep
And yet unsleeping. These, while twilight breathes
Great stealthy veils of silence over all,
Feed my old indolence with newer food,
Till, all forgetful of the hour, I see,
Winking above a western cloud, the star
Beloved by lovers and the lover's friend,
And, underneath the boughs and far and near,
The fireflies climbing into dusky air,
Lifting their million stars from grass and weed
Wet with the dew; meanwhile the stars on high
Start one by one—from cells invisible—
Visible in the darkness suddenly,
Cotemporaries of the dreamy hour.
Oh, dear to me the coming forth of stars!
After the trivial tumults of the day
They fill the heaven, they hush the earth with awe,
And, when my life is fretted pettily
With transient nothings, it is good, I deem,
From darkling windows to look forth and gaze
At this new blossoming of Eternity
'Twixt each To-morrow and each dead To-day,
Or else with solemn footsteps modulate
To spheral music wander forth and know
Their radiant individualities
And feel their presence newly, hear again
The silence that is God's voice speaking, slow
In starry syllables, for evermore.