SONG OF THE EVENING HOUR. Ann Radcliffe (née Ward) Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. 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]

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