Relicta :: :: University of Virginia Library

Oh the grave and gloomy quiet at the closing of the day!
When the sun has long gone down,
Not in splendours of his own,
But behind a veil of vapour vaguely vanishing away;
With a wraith of filmy cloud,
Creased and wrinkled, to enshroud
All the glow that he should give us at the closing of the day.

Oh the stern and stolid quiet at the closing of the day!
When the purple furrows gleam
Cold and steely, and the team
Loiters homeward, and the hawthorn blooms, in blood-drops, not in May;
When the harvest months are done,
And the autumn rains begun,
And the black earth reeks with odours, at the closing of the day.

Oh the dim and solemn quiet at the closing of the day!
When the leaves are dropping slow,
And the wet birds come and go
Through the hedges, and white winter is already on its way
When the smoke of smouldering tares,
Loosely borne on lagging airs,
Frets the nostrils with its savour, at the closing of the day.

Oh the grim and ghostly quiet at the closing of the day!
When the cattle cease to move,
And the trees stand close, above,
And the mounds about the churchyard lie unshadow'd in the grey;
When the soul that dwells alone
Finds a sadness like its own
In the heart of Mother Nature, at the closing of the day.