Classic Poem

It is the twilight hour:
Tired Nature rests from the day's tasks —
The fevered burgeoning and strife and heat,
In reverent quietness and strength and peace,
The while the pale-robed Dusk,
Seated before her airy loom
Musing, hummeth a low sweet song,
And humming, threadeth her shifting shuttle
Over the warp of valleys, fields and hills,
Lacing and interlacing the soft wold
With tinted shreds of melting haze.
Beneath me rests a polished lisping sea,
Whose inland waters oft have felt
The hoof-beats of the unbridled gale, —
Calm, cool and limpid with the pink
And pallid lilac of the day's farewell;
Behind, dark woods of birch and conifer,
Hushed like a multitude in silent prayer,
Ascend triumphantly the curving shore.
Shadow by deepening shadow,
Swiftly the night descends
As jewel by glistening jewel
The trembling stars appear.

Bird, at this hour floating thy melody, —
What art thou? . . And thou, star of the evening sky?
Art thou a flaming spirit mirrored in a spirit sea? . .
Now doth it seem the mystery that dwells
Within the light of yonder incandescent world
Is one with that which gives the thrush its gush of song,
Which wheels the ancient earth,
Which trumpets up the spring,
Which flowing in my veins gives me to sing!

Vast Spirit-Force, Brahma or Manitou,
That dost o'erspread the earth with joyous life,
Quivering and blossoming throughout the Universe
Into a thousand thousand forms and harmonies,
Thou God for whom the planets spin,
Whose breath is in the ether and the wind,
Whose voice is in the pine-trees and the wave,
Do Thou unseal our ears, unveil our eyes,
That we may understand thy solemn thunders
Speaking in dawn and dark, in birth and change:
" Creature, thou art thy brother's keeper,
For thy brother and thyself are part of Me! "