The sun has set at last! The sky, That all the hot and stifling day Hung like a burning arch on high, Grows, as the fierce heat dies away, Cool and refreshing; o'er the glades The hills frown giant-like and grim, And meadows, in the misty shades Of night, look shadowy and dim. The sun is down; yet in the west Is lingering still the day's last light, Around the hills his glory blest When sinking slowly from the sight; And, far above the mountain brown, Along the dreamy azure, sleep The small white clouds like tufts of down Upon the bosom of the deep. As twilight fades, how all the earth The night with solemn gladness fills! The moon, as fair as at her birth, Where heaven is wedded to the hills Through fleecy clouds around her flung, Wheels up beside the same sweet star That with her, when the sky was young, Looked over Eden from afar. Beneath the moon the wild brook learns Its own sweet music; o'er the plain The tired husbandman returns, Rejoicing, to his home again,— While from the dense old forest trees Where, shrouded from the scorching heat, All day it slept, the evening breeze Comes sweeping up the dusty street,— And, passing on its mission, goes To cool the parched and fevered soil, To bless the fainting vine that throws Its tendrils round the door of toil, And stir the myriad leaves, until Their rising murmur swells along, With all life's utterances that fill The world with a perpetual song. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO A POET, WHO WOULD HAVE ME PRAISE CERTAIN BAD POETS, IMITATORS ... by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS TERNISSA, FR HELLENICS by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR SONNET: 21. TO CYRIACK SKINNER by JOHN MILTON SONNET: 23. ON HIS DECEASED WIFE by JOHN MILTON SNAKES, MONGOOSES, SNAKE-CHARMERS, AND THE LIKE by MARIANNE MOORE |