THE long day wanes, the broad fields fade ; the night,
The sweet June night, is like a curtain drawn;
The dark lanes know no faintest sound, and white
The pallid hawthorn lights the smoothpleached lawn ;
The scented earth drinks from the silent skies
Soft dews, more sweet than softest harmonies.
There is no stir nor breath of air, the plains
Lie slumbering in the close embrace of night,
Only the rustling landrail's note complains;
The children's casement shows the half-veiled light,
Only beneath the solemn elm trees tall
The fountain seems to fall and cease to fall.
No change will come, nor any sound be made
Thro' the still hours which shall precede the day ;
Only the bright-eyed stars will slowly fade,
And a thin vapour rise up cold and gray,
Then a soft breeze will whisper fresh and cold,
And up the swift sun hurries red as gold.
And then another dawn, another link,
To bind the coming to the vanished day,
Another foot-pace nearer to the brink
Whereon our perilous footsteps hardly stay,
Another line upon the secular page
Of birth-throes, bridals, sick-beds, youth and age.
Sweet summer night, than summer days more fair,
Safe haven of the weary and forlorn,
Splendid the gifts the luminous noontides bear,
Lovely the opening eyelids of the morn ;
But thou with softest touch transrigurest
This toilworn earth into a heaven of rest.
