NIGHTFALL

Eve goes slowly

Dancing lightly

Clad with shadow up the hills;

Birds their singing

Cease at last, and silence

Falling like fine rain the valley fills.

Not a bat's cry

Stirs the stillness

Perfect as broad water sleeping,

Not a moth's wings

Flit in the gathering darkness,

Not a mouselike moonray ev'n comes creeping.

Then a light shines

From the casement,

Wreathed with jasmine boughs and stars,

Palely golden

As the late eve's primrose,

Glimmers through green leafy prison bars.