University of Virginia Library


101

V.THE MOON.

How often and how vainly do we try
To paint in words the dying of the day!
Coming repose ennobling us, the play
Of fretted fire and gold afar and nigh.
This night seen from that western casement high,
It was so terribly fair with cloudlet-sheaves,
Amber and ruby burning through the leaves,
I said once more, It must not pass me by!
But when another hour the clock had told,
I went to look again, and saw framed there,
By fringing ivy like carved jet, the sky,
The void sky, silver-bright, so vast, so cold,
The faint moon round as is Eternity,—
I quite forgot the sunset's splendid glare.