When the sun falls asleep in the West,
And watch the gray Twilight walk over the hill
In garments of night partly dressed,
And see, through the rooms of my neighbor’s mill,
How she creeps like an unbidden guest.
I love the low hum of the numberless wheels—
They echo the heart-beats of time,
Each unto my pen its purpose reveals,
Like the magic of meter and rhyme;
Or, as to the soul that in penitence kneels,