SNOW DUSK
The iron twilight closes, and the steep
Gates of the day where late the light was hurled,
Swing to on silent hinges, and a sleep,
A still, white sleep is fallen on the world.
There is no stir these trackless miles around:
The Earth is turned a grey cathedral close,
Where is forgot all motion and all sound,
Beneath these smooth, obliterating snows.
One burning taper trembles ... and the sky
Curves like a dome where cloudy anthems are,
Above immaculate distances that lie
In thoughtful adoration of a star ...
Earth has her veil, and takes her silent vow:
Nothing save holiness is left her now.
MOOD
This grave, unlabouring beauty of the dusk,
Stars and still fields and swallows in the sky,
These cool, damp odours faint with earthen musk,
The fading sheep like ghosts of sheep gone by,—
Have held so long the thought of brooding men,
That something like a mood has gathered there,
Piled deep and high, again and yet again,
A moving, thoughtful presence on the air.
So when the last light passes from the hill,
Leaving these fields a glimmering grey and blue,
And the last bell has sounded and grown still,—
These blinking stars awake and tremble through,
Re-blossomed from those gathering moods of time,
Like brooding thoughts that flower into rhyme.