The whippoorwills are calling where
The golden west is graying;
"'Tis time," they say, "to meet him there—
Why are you still delaying?
"He waits you where the old beech throws
Its gnarly shadow over
Wood-violet and the bramble rose,
Frail maiden-fern and clover.
"Where elder and the sumach creep
Above your garden's paling,
Whereon at noon the lizards sleep
Like lichens on the railing.
"Come! ere the early rising moon's
Gold floods the violet valleys;
Where mists, like phantom picaroons
Anchor their stealthy galleys.
"Come! while the deepening amethyst
Of dusk above is falling—
'Tis time to tryst! 'tis time to tryst!"
The whippoorwills are calling.
They call you to these twilight ways
With dewy odor dripping—
Ah, girlhood, through the rosy haze
Come like a moonbeam slipping.
3
He enters her garden, speaking dreamily:
There is a fading inward of the day,
And all the pansy heaven clasps one star;
The dwindling acres eastward glimmer gray,
While all the world to westward smoulders far.
Now to your glass will you pass for the last time?
Pass! humming some ballad, I know,—
Here where I wait it is late and is past time—
Late! and the moments are slow, are slow.