"When the gray twilight softly spreads
Her robe o'er earth and sky;
When the far mountains' shaggy heads
Are lost to human eye;
When the tired bird at eve hath sought
Sleep in the tuneless bower;
When the last bee wings homeward, fraught
With forage from the flower;
When the dark pinewood dimly shews
Its deepening tints of green;
When in the west with crimson glows
The sunset's closing scene —
I watch the glimmering shadows kiss
The threshold of the night,
And o'er my heart a soothing bliss
Falls in the waning light;
And grosser thoughts that sternly cling
To life's dull sober day.
Leave me, as swallows on the wing
Flit from our sight away.
And soft as ripple on the lake,
Within my bosom rise
Half-whispered yearnings, that awake
A thousand memories —
Sweet memories, that only come
To woo my waking dreams.
When twilight shrouds the woodlands dumb,
And slumbers on the streams —
Of faces that I loved of yore,
And songs the loved ones sang,
And children's voices — heard no more —
That through the greenwood rang.
O spirit treasures, ye are mine,
And to my heart belong,
Yet linger not till I repine,
Or sing a sadder song;
But leave me while I still have power
To catch the sunny glow
Wafted from memory's blissful bower —
The shrine of long ago.
