[Page 83]

SONG OF THE EVENING HOUR.

1 Last of the Hours, that track the fading Day,
2 I move along the realms of twilight air,
3 And hear, remote, the choral song decay
4 Of sister-nymphs, who dance around my car.
5 Then, as I follow through the azure void,
6 His partial splendour from my straining eye
7 Sinks in the depths of space; my only guide
8 His faint ray dawning on the farthest sky;
9 Save that sweet ling'ring strain of gayer Hours!
10 Whose close my voice prolongs in dying notes,
11 While mortals on the green earth own its pow'rs,
12 As downward on the ev'ning gale it floats.
[Page 84]
13 When fades along the west the Sun's last beam
14 As, weary, to the nether world he goes,
15 And mountain-summits catch the purple gleam,
16 And slumb'ring ocean faint and fainter glows;
17 Silent upon the globe's broad shade I steal,
18 And o'er its dry turf shed the cooling dews,
19 And ev'ry fever'd herb and flow'ret heal,
20 And all their fragrance on the air diffuse.
21 Where'er I move, a tranquil pleasure reigns;
22 O'er all the scene the dusky tints I send,
23 That forests wild and mountains, stretching plains
24 And peopled towns, in soft confusion blend.
25 Wide o'er the world I waft the fresh'ning wind,
26 Low breathing through the woods and twilight vale,
27 In whispers soft, that woo the pensive mind
28 Of him who loves my lonely steps to hail.
[Page 85]
29 His tender oaten reed I watch to hear,
30 Stealing its sweetness o'er some plaining rill,
31 Or soothing ocean's wave, when storms are near,
32 Or swelling in the breeze from distant hill!
33 I wake the fairy elves, who shun the light:
34 When, from their blossom'd beds, they slily peep,
35 And spy my pale star, leading on the night, —
36 Forth to their games and revelry they leap;
37 Send all the prison'd sweets abroad in air,
38 That with them slumber'd in the flow'ret's cell;
39 Then to the shores and moon-light brooks repair,
40 'Till the high larks their matin carol swell.
41 The wood-nymphs hail my airs and temper'd shade,
42 With ditties soft and lightly sportive dance,
43 On river margin of some bow'ry glade,
44 And strew their fresh buds as my steps advance. —
[Page 86]
45 But swift I pass, and distant regions trace,
46 For moon-beams silver all the eastern cloud,
47 And Day's last crimson vestige fades apace;
48 Down the steep west I fly from Midnight's shroud.

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Title (in Source Edition): SONG OF THE EVENING HOUR.
Author: Ann Radcliffe (née Ward)
Themes:
Genres: song

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Radcliffe, Ann Ward, 1764-1823. The Poems of Mrs. Ann Radcliffe. London: printed by and for J. Smith, Princes Street, 1816, pp. 83-86. 118p. [Radcliffe's poems only, pp. 1-95] (Page images digitized from a copy held at the National Library of the Netherlands.)

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