Sections: General Index Present Section: Index Present Work: Index Previous: 21. Once in a Life Next: 23. “The Last”
(p. 69)
22.
NIGHTFALL
HERE at my window I sit, and the sparrows
Chatter and chirp in the vine-boughs below,
And the panes of the casement are all aglow,
For the battle of day and night is done,
And the blood-dyed meadows of the West
Are strewn with a hundred golden arrows,
And far away, the vanquished Sun
Goes down like a God to his rest.
Now he dips in the level water,
Over him blazes his fiery hair,
And the plates of his burnished armour
flare
All like a warrior’s, red from the slaughter!
O! it is sweet, when the
clamorous day
With its rage and its war-cry has passed away,
And comes the moon with her bloodless quiver,
And the stars that stand round her like cowards and
shiver,
And far beneath them, ghostly and gray,
The sea that rolls and rolls for ever!
(p. 70)
Still at the window I sit and drink
All the sweet odours of
silence, that rise
Up from the world to the musical skies,
And the voice of the waters that swell
and sink
Speaks through the distance, and dimly I think
Of that fathomless ocean of Time and Fate
Bearing us onward and on without cess
Into the dark mysterious Never,
Spirit to spirit, the small and the great,
Many we love, and some that we hate,
And the foolish and learned, the wise and the clever,
Into the
The sea that rolls and rolls for ever!
What then? there are many who
tremble and weep,
Some who are careless, and some who would sleep,
But I have a love in this heart of mine,
A love as I think, that is half divine,
And I render my worship to GOD the Giver,
For the treasure He gives me to cherish and keep,
For this love in my heart, that is mighty and deep
As the sea that rolls and rolls for ever!
Sections: General Index Present Section: Index Present Work: Index Previous: 21. Once in a Life Next: 23. “The Last”
