SUNSET! a hush is on the air, Their gray old heads the mountains bare, As if the winds were saying prayer. The woodland, with its broad, green wing, Shuts close the insect whispering, And lo! the sea gets up to sing. The day's last splendor fades and dies, And shadows one by one arise, To light the candles of the skies. O wild flowers, wet with tearful dew, O woods, with starlight shining through! My heart is back to-night with you! I know each beech and maple tree, Each climbing brier and shrub I see, -- Like friends they stand to welcome me. Musing, I go along the streams, Sweetly believing in my dreams; For Fancy like a prophet seems. Footsteps beside me tread the sod As in the twilights gone they trod; And I unlearn my doubts, thank God! Unlearn my doubts, forget my fears, And that bad carelessness that sears, And makes me older than my years. I hear a dear, familiar tone, A loving hand is in my own, And earth seems made for me alone. If I my fortunes could have planned, I would not have let go that hand; But they must fall who learn to stand. And how to blend life's varied hues, What ill to find, what good to lose, My Father knoweth best to choose. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FANCY IN NUBIBUS; OR, THE POET IN THE CLOUDS by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE A DIRGE (1) by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS THE FIRE OF DRIFTWOOD; DEVEREUX FARM, NEAR MARBLEHEAD by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW KEATS (1) by LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE TO HIMSELF; AN ODE by ANACREON TO A FRIEND by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD THE EVE OF BANNOCKBURN by JOHN BARBOUR FIAMMETTA: SONNET. OF HIS LAST SIGHT OF FIAMMETTA by GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO SANDY STAR: 1. SCULPTURED WORSHIP by WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE |