When the Dark Comes Down

When the dark comes down, oh, the wind is on the

With lisping laugh and whimper to the red reef's threnody,

The boats are sailing homeward now across the harbor

With many a jest and many a shout from fishing grounds afar.

So furl your sails and take your rest, ye fisher folk so brown,

For task and quest are ended when the dark comes down.

When the dark comes down, oh, the landward valleys

Like brimming cups of purple, and on every landward

There shines a star of twilight that is watching

The low, dim lighted meadows by the long, dim-lighted shore,

For there, where vagrant daisies weave the grass a silver crown,

The lads and lassies wander when the dark comes down.

When the dark comes down, oh, the children fall asleep,

And mothers in the fisher huts their happy vigils keep;

There's music in the song they sing and music on the sea,

The loving, lingering echoes of the twilight's litany,

For toil has folded hands to dream, and care has ceased to frown,

And every wave's a lyric when the dark comes down.