University of Virginia Library


159

A WINTER TWILIGHT.

Blood-shotten through the bleak gigantic trees
The sunset, o'er a wilderness of snow,
Startles the wolfish winds that wilder grow
As hunger mocks their howling miseries.
In every skulking shadow Fancy sees
The menace of an undiscovered foe—
A sullen footstep, treacherous and slow,
That comes, or into deeper darkness flees.
Nor Day nor Night, in Time's eternal round
Whereof the tides are telling, e'er hath passed
This Isthmus-hour—this dim, mysterious land
That sets their lives asunder—where up-cast
Their earliest and their latest waves resound,
As each, alternate, nears or leaves the strand.