Poems (Ford)/After the Storm

For works with similar titles, see After the Storm.

AFTER THE STORM.

The storm is past, and gloriously
Shines out the setting sun,
To give the earth a parting smile
Before the day is done;
And in the calm blue eastern heaven
The fleecy clouds drift free,
Like pearl-barks with gold-tinted sails
Upon a sapphire sea.

As over field and forest fall
The day's departing beams,
Lighting with gold the waving boughs,
And crimsoning the streams,
Across the yellow harvest-fields
The trees long shadows fling,
Like plumes that Evening's hand has plucked
From out Night's sable wing.

The haze of twilight gathers round
In shadowy silence pale,
Shedding a softer beauty o'er
The scene it seems to veil,
And, one by one, night's starry lamps
Swing out in the blue dome—
Bright tapers lit by angel hands
To guide lost wanderers home.

God's little, feathered worshippers
Have sung their vesper hymn,
And silence walks with viewless tread
'Mid evening's shadows dim;
The soft, light breeze upon its wings
Bears heavenly peace and rest,—
Its whispering tones sweet echoes seem
From mansions of the blest.

Lord, with what loveliness Thy hand
Has decked this world of ours—
Its waving woods, clear, singing streams,
And myriad-tinted flowers,
Its ever-changing seas and skies,
Proclaim Thy boundless love,
And faintly picture to our thoughts
The glorious world above.

Oh, when the fitful storms that cloud
Life's changing sky are past,
And the pale twilight shades of death
Our evening have o'ercast,
O Sun of Justice, Lord of all,
May Thy ne'er-fading ray
Shed o'er the parting spirit's view
The light of endless day.