Poems (Ford)/Twilight

For works with similar titles, see Twilight.

TWILIGHT.

Upon his crimson-curtained couch,
Far in the glowing west,
His long and weary journey o'er,
The day-king sank to rest,
While Nature, careful mother, home
Bade all her weary children come,
To slumber on her breast.

The clouds that to the sunset dyes
Their fleecy folds unrolled,
Lay piled across the western skies
Like snow-drifts tinged with gold,
While heaven's broad fields of hazy blue
Displayed a blush of amber hue
In every azure fold.

Sweet as a dream of childhood days
The twilight hours glide by,
Till night has trimmed her silver lamps
And hung them in the sky,
And Luna, on her throne afar,
With many a bright attendant star,
Smiles calmly from on high.

O twilight hours, O fading days!
Upon your viewless wings
What fancies float, like zephyrs, by;
What memories do ye bring
Up from the dim aisles of the past,
Like ocean shells that, landward cast,
Still of their caverns sing.

Loved voices silent long ago
Float on the breathing air;
Long-buried faces smile again
In living beauty fair;
Old songs of home, old friends that smile,
Shut out the present for a while,
And banish grief and care.

Still to the heart must twilight be
The dearest hour of all;
Soft as the sweep of angel wings
Its shades around us fall;
It lulls the soul, when tempest-tossed,
With memories of the loved and lost,
And breathes of rest to all.

As calmly o'er life's twilight hour
May death's dark shadow come;
May many a radiant star of hope
Shine through the gathering gloom,
Like lamps by angel-hands at even
Held o'er the battlements of heaven
To light lost wanderers home.

Oh, Father, may the clouds of sin
That dim our heavenward way
In penitential tears dissolve;
May life's last sunset ray
Reveal beyond the shores of time
The glories of a changeless clime
Of never-ending day.