Evening In Summer

Confess'd from yonder slow-extinguish'd clouds,

All ether softening, sober Evening takes

Her wonted station in the middle air;

She sends on earth; then that of deeper dye

Steals soft behind; and then a deeper still,

In circle following circle, gathers round,

To close the face of things. A fresher gale

Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream,

Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn;

While the quail clamours for his running mate.

Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze,

A whitening shower of vegetable down

Amusive floats. The kind impartial care

Of Nature nought disdains: thoughtful to feed

Her lowest songs, and clothe the coming year,

From field to field the feather'd seed she wings.

Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge,

The glowworm lights his gem; and through the dark

A moving radiance twinkles. Evening yields

The world to Night; not in her winter robe

Of massy Stygian woof, but loose array'd

In mantle dun. A faint erroneous ray,

Glanced from th' imperfect surfaces of things,

Flings half an image on the straining eye;

While wavering woods, and villages, and streams,

And rocks, and mountain tops, that long retain'd

Th' ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene,

Uncertain if beheld.