III.

Day closed, and busy life lay down to rest. A shade that moved not held in cold embrace The yielding meadows and the hills’ calm face, About whose silence burned the cloudless west. No leafy murmur rose from darkening wood, Hushed the pure gladness of the robins’ trill; Called from low covert some lone whip-poor-will Only to heighten eve’s still solitude. The wind asleep, the quiet waters bore Vision of sky and mountains’ deepening shade, And touch of bending birches, softly laid, As the still stream gave back their glance once more. Clear, through the silence, drifted rippling tones— The patient river singing to the stones.