PROGRESS OF EVENING.
From yonder wood mark blue-eyed Eve proceed:
First through the deep, and warm, and secret glens,
Through the pale-glimmering, privet-scented lane,
And through those alders by the river-side:
Now the soft dust impedes her, which the sheep
Have hollow’d out beneath their hawthorn shade.
But ah! look yonder! see a misty tide
Rise up the hill, lay low the frowning grove,
Enwrap the gay, white mansion, sap its sides,
Until they sink and melt away like chalk.
Now it comes down against our village tower,
Covers its base, floats o’er its arches, tears
The clinging ivy from the battlements—
Mingles in broad embrace the obdurate stone
All one vast ocean! and goes swelling on
Slow and silent, dim and deepening waves.
Walter Savage Landor.