 | Poems and Lancashire Songs |  |
98
NIGHTFALL.
I
The green leaves answer to the night-wind's sigh,And dew-drops winking, on the meadows lie;
The sun's gone down
O'er the drowsy town;
And the brooks are singing to the listening moon.
II
The soft wind whispers on its moody way;The plumy woodlands in the moonlight play;
Night's tapers gleam
In the gliding stream;
Heaven's eyes are watching while the earth doth dream.
99
III
The lovely light that dwells in woman's eyes,Softly curtained by the fringed lids lies;
Sleep's Lethean hand
Waves o'er the land,
And the weary toiler to his shelter hies.
IV
Old nurse, whose lullaby can soothe them all,Oh, hap them kindly in thy downy pall!
They've gone astray
On life's rough way;
But, rest them; rest them for another day.
V
The living, sleeping in their warm beds lie;The dead are sleeping in the churchyard, nigh;
The mild moon's beam
O'er all doth stream,
And life and death appear a mingling dream.
100
VI
Decay, that in my very breath doth creep,Thou surely art akin to this soft sleep,
That shows the way
To a bed of clay,
Whose wakeless slumbers close the mortal day.
VII
And thus, with ceaseless roll, time's silent waveLands me each night upon a mimic grave,
Whose soft repose
Hints at life's close,—
Death's fleets are cruising where life's current flows.
| Poems and Lancashire Songs | |