EVENING.
Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.—Psalm lv. 17.
It shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.—Zechariah, xiv. 7.
Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.—Luke, xxiv. 29.
Now came still evening on, and twilight grey
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird—
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests—
Were shrunk, all but the wakeful nightingale:
She all night long her beauteous descant sung:
Silence was pleased. Now glow’d the firmament
With living sapphires. Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length,
Apparent queen, unveil’d her peerless light,
And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw:
When Adam thus to Eve, “Fair consort, the hour
Of night, and all things now retired to rest,
Mind us of long repose, since God has set
Labour and rest, as day and night to men
Successive, and the timely dew of sleep,
Now falling with soft cumbrous weight, inclines
Our eyelids. Other creatures all day long
Rove idle unemployed, and less need rest:
Man hath his daily work of body or mind
Appointed, which declares his dignity,
And the regard of heaven on all his ways,
While other animals inactive range,
And of their doings God takes no account.”
Milton.
Then is the time
For those whom wisdom, and whom nature charm,
To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd,
And soar above this little scene of things;
To tread low-thoughted vice beneath their feet,
To soothe the throbbing passions into peace,
And woo lone quiet in her silent walks.
Thomson.
The sun hath sunk behind the hill,
But over earth, and sky, and air,
Eve’s crimson tints are glowing still,
And tidings of to-morrow bear.
Thus hope, when sinks life’s happiness,
Upon our night of sorrow glows,
Promising brighter, endless bliss,
After our pilgrimage of woes.
The longing heart, whose wishes spring
To fond foreboding’s unknown land,
Borrows imagination’s wing,
Though fettered here in reason’s band.
Presumptuous! whither would’st thou fly?
Earth’s vapours mock thine eye of clay.
Mark crimson evening’s golden sky,
And hope the morrow’s promised day.
From the Swedish of Ingelgren.
Few bring back at eve,
Immaculate, the manners of the morn.
Something we thought is blotted; we resolved,
Is shaken; we renounced, returns again.
Young.
Sweet after showers, ambrosial air,
That rollest from the gorgeous gloom
Of evening, over brake, and bloom,
And meadow, slowly breathing bare
The round of space, and rapt below
Through all the dewy-tassell’d wood,
And shadowing down the horned flood
In ripples, fan my brows and blow
The fever from my cheek, and sigh
The full new life that feeds thy breath
Throughout my frame, till doubt and death,
Ill brethren, let the fancy fly
From belt to belt of crimson seas
On leagues of odour streaming far,
To where in yonder orient star
A hundred spirits whisper “Peace.”
Tennyson.
Pleasantly comest thou,
Dew of the evening, to the crisp’d up grass;
And the curl’d corn-blades bow,
And the light breezes pass,
That their parch’d lips may feel thee, and expand,
Thou sweet reviver of the fever’d land.
So, to the thirsting soul,
Cometh the dew of the Almighty’s love;
And the scathed heart, made whole,
Turneth in joy above,
To where the spirit freely may expand,
And rove, untrammelled, in that better “land.”
W. D. Gallagher.
Behold the western evening-light!
It melts in deepening gloom;
So calmly Christians sink away,
Descending to the tomb.
The winds breathe low; the withering leaf
Scarce whispers from the tree;
So gently flows the parting breath,
When good men cease to be.
How beautiful on all the hills
The crimson light is shed!
’Tis like the peace the Christian gives
To mourners round his bed.
How mildly on the wandering cloud
The sunset beam is cast;
’Tis like the memory left behind,
When loved ones breathe their last.
And now above the dews of night,
The yellow star appears;
So faith springs in the heart of those
Whose eyes are bathed in tears.
But soon the morning’s happier light
Its glory shall restore,
And eyelids that are seal’d in death.
Shall wake, to close no more.
Peabody.