Confess'd from yonder slow-extinguish'd clouds,
All ether softening, sober Evening
Her wonted station in the middle air;
She sends on earth; then that of deeper
Steals soft behind; and then a deeper still,
In circle following circle, gathers round,
To close the face of things.
A fresher
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
Amusive floats.
The kind impartial
Of Nature nought disdains: thoughtful to
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 darkA moving radiance twinkles.
Evening
The world to Night; not in her winter
Of massy Stygian woof, but loose
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
Th' ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene,
Uncertain if beheld.
