Evening.

Rest, beauty, stillness: not a waif of a cloud     From gray-blue east sheer to the yellow west -     No film of mist the utmost slopes to shroud.     The earth lies grace, by quiet airs caressed,     And shepherdeth her shadows, but each stream,     Free to the sky, is by that glow possessed,     And traileth with the splendors of a dream     Athwart the dusky land.    Uplift thine eyes!     Unbroken by a vapor or a gleam,     The vast clear reach of mild, wan twilight skies.     But look again, and lo, the evening star!     Against the pale tints black the slim elms rise,     The earth exhales sweet odors nigh and far,     And from the heavens fine influences fall.     Familiar things stand not for what they are:     What they suggest, foreshadow, or recall     The spirit is alert to apprehend,     Imparting somewhat of herself to all.     Labor and thought and care are at an end:     The soul is filled with gracious reveries,     And with her mood soft sounds and colors blend;     For simplest sounds ring forth like melodies     In this weird-lighted air - the monotone     Of some far bell, the distant farmyard cries,     A barking dog, the thin, persistent drone     Of crickets, and the lessening call of birds.     The apparition of yon star alone     Breaks on the sense like music.    Beyond word     The peace that floods the soul, for night is here,     And Beauty still is guide and harbinger.