Chapter XXIX

Towards evening, where the sweet-gum flung
Its thorny balls among the weeds,
And where the milkweed’s sleepy seeds,--
A fairy Feast of Lanterns,--swung;
The cricket tuned a plaintive lyre,
And o’er the hills the sunset hung
A purple parchment scrawled with fire.

From silver-blue to amethyst
The shadows broadened in the vale;
And, belt by belt, the pearly pale
Aladdin fabric of the mist
Stretched its vague exhalation far;
A jewel on an Afrit’s wrist,
One star gemmed sunset’s cinnabar.

Then night drew near, as when, alone,
The heart and soul grow intimate;
And on the hills the twilight sate
With shadows, whose wild robes were sown
With dreams and whispers--dreams, that led
The heart once with love’s monotone,
And whispers of the living dead.