The bells :: :: University of Virginia Library

How softly comes the Evening down
And weds the vapors of the town!
Bending o'er its tumult wild
As above her restless child
Bends the mother, singing lowly
Some refrain of melancholy.

II.

Voices heard at twilight hour
Have a deep, a touching power;
Distant sounds seem clearer, nearer,
And the Dead are nearer, dearer!
Forms and faces seem to wear
Touches of diviner air.

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III.

'Neath the glimpses of the moon,
Flowers pale, and droop, and swoon,
Truant streams steal out of glens,
Over violet-scented fens,
Through the tall grass of the meadow,
Throwing back Diana's shadow.

IV.

The phantom fingers of the Breeze
Play upon the slumberous trees
Their wondrous, untaught minstrelsy!
Making every leaf a key!
Every twig a flat or sharp!
Every sycamore a harp!

V.

The music voice of distant rills
Humming in the hearts of hills
Steals upon me like a stream
Of music thro' a saddened dream,
Or, as with a murmuring breath
Thoughtful memory whispereth.

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VI.

And, more charming than the chimes
Floating through a poet's rhymes,
From the hill-brows and the dells
Comes a tinkling tongue that tells
Of grazing herd, while from the hill
Pipes the plaintive Whip-po-will!

VII.

The Evening comes as softly down
Upon my heart as on the town;
Bends above its tumult wild
As above her restless child
Bends the mother, singing lowly
Some refrain of melancholy.