Song for the Evening Twilight

Let the daylight steal away, love, from the rosy-tinted west,
And the brooding darkness settle, like a bird upon her nest, 
Settle softly down upon us, in this dreamy sunlight haze
          Of our souls, that mingle sweetly,
          Sweetly mingle, and completely,
The clear Present with the misty, mellow light of other days.  

Kindle not the yellow lamp-light, while the growing shadows steal,
With a softly tremulous motion which our very spirits feel,
Steal down silently and fluttering, as if they found the wings
          Of the dear, still dear, Departed—
          The Departed, gentle-hearted,—
Coming to us in the twilight, with their holy whisperings. 

Oh, the blending, lowly blending of the starlight in the room
With the blithe dance of the firelights in the dimly-purpled gloom,
Like the glance of those remembered eyes which mix their starry glow
          With the home-joy and love-laughter
          Laughter with no pangs thereafter,
Laughing love out, in the silence, from our own eyes to and fro.

Lot the moon-rise shed its silver silence round us for a while;
The white silence of our early love comes o’er us, in its smile,
Oh, tenderer and sweeter now than in its early morn!
          And the dews which Summer showers 
          Showering on her languid flowers.
Are not fresher than the very tears that from the depths are borne.

Fill the gloaming with thy love-light only, which thy night-black eyes
Pour their luminous darkness over mine, as Night does o’er the skies; 
And our twin hearts in the stillness feel the beat of Nature’s own,
          To its undulant vibration
          Vibrate, with an undulation
Wide as Life, and gentle as the heave of dreaming Psyche’s zone.