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(From Yamoyden)
THE SUN is sinking from the sky | |
| In calm and cloudless majesty; | |
| And cooler hours, with gentle sway, | |
| Succeed the fiery heat of day. | |
| Forest and shore and rippling tide | 5 |
| Confess the evening’s influence wide, | |
| Seen lovelier in that fading light | |
| That heralds the approaching night; | |
| That magic coloring Nature throws, | |
| To deck her beautiful repose, | 10 |
| When floating on the breeze of even, | |
| Long clouds of purple streak the heaven, | |
| With brighter tints of glory blending, | |
| And darker hues of night descending, | |
| While hastening to its shady rest | 15 |
| Each weary songster seeks its nest, | |
| Chanting a last, a farewell lay, | |
| As gloomier falls the parting day. | |
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| Broad Narragansett’s bosom blue | |
| Has shone with every varying hue; | 20 |
| The mystic alchemy of even | |
| Its rich delusions all has given. | |
| The silvery sheet unbounded spread, | |
| First melting from the waters fled; | |
| Next the wide path of beaten gold | 25 |
| Flashing with fiery sparkles rolled;— | |
| As all its gorgeous glories died, | |
| An amber tinge blushed o’er the tide; | |
| Faint and more faint, as more remote, | |
| The lessening ripples peaceful float; | 30 |
| And now, one ruby line alone | |
| Trembles, is paler, and is gone, | |
| And from the blue wave fades away | |
| The last life-tint of dying day! | |
| In darkness veiled, was seen no more | 35 |
| Canonicut’s extended shore; | |
| Each little isle, with bosom green, | |
| Descending mists impervious screen; | |
| One gloomy shade o’er all the woods | |
| Of forest-fringed Aquetnet broods; | 40 |
| Where solemn oak was seen before | |
| Beside the rival sycamore, | |
| Or pine and cedar lined the height, | |
| All in one livery brown were dight. | |
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| But lo! with orb serene on high, | 45 |
| The round moon climbs the eastern sky; | |
| The stars all quench their feebler rays | |
| Before her universal blaze. | |
| Round moon! how sweetly dost thou smile | |
| Above that green reposing isle, | 50 |
| Soft cradled in the illumined bay, | |
| Where from its bank the shadows seem | |
| Melting in filmy light away. | |
| Far does thy tempered lustre stream, | |
| Checkering the tufted groves on high, | 55 |
| While glens in gloom beneath them lie. | |
| Oft sheeted with the ghostly beam, | |
| Mid the thick forest’s mass of shade, | |
| The shingled roof is gleaming white, | |
| Where labor, in the cultured glade, | 60 |
| Has all the wild a garden made. | |
| And there with silvery tassels bright | |
| The serried maize is waving slow, | |
| While fitful shadows come and go, | |
| Swift o’er its undulating seas, | 65 |
| As gently breathes the evening breeze. | |
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