TWILIGHT

Spirit of Twilight, through your folded wings
I catch a glimpse of your averted face,
And rapturous on a sudden, my soul sings
"Is not this common earth a holy place?"

Spirit of Twilight, you are like a song
That sleeps, and waits a singer,--like a hymn
That God finds lovely and keeps near Him long,
Till it is choired by aureoled cherubim.

Spirit of Twilight, in the golden gloom
Of dreamland dim I sought you, and I found
A woman sitting in a silent room
Full of white flowers that moved and made no sound.

These white flowers were the thoughts you bring to all,
And the room's name is Mystery where you sit,
Woman whom we call Twilight, when night's pall
You lift across our Earth to cover it.

Olive Custance [1874-

TWILIGHT AT SEA

The twilight hours, like birds, flew by,
As lightly and as free,
Ten thousand stars were in the sky,
Ten thousand on the sea;
For every wave, with dimpled face,
That leaped upon the air,
Had caught a star in its embrace,
And held it trembling there.

Amelia C. Welby [1819-1852]

"THIS IS MY HOUR"

I
The ferries ply like shuttles in a loom,
And many barques come in across the bay
To lights and bells that signal through the gloom
Of twilight gray;

And like the brown soft flutter of the snow
The wide-winged sea-birds droop from closing skies,
And hover near the water, circling low,
As the day dies.

The city like a shadowed castle stands,
Its turrets indistinctly touching night;
Like earth-born stars far fetched from faerie lands,
Its lamps are bright.

This is my hour,--when wonder springs anew
To see the towers ascending, pale and high,
And the long seaward distances of blue,
And the dim sky.

II
This is my hour, between the day and night;
The sun has set and all the world is still,
The afterglow upon the distant hill
Is as a holy light.

This is my hour, between the sun and moon;
The little stars are gathering in the sky,
There is no sound but one bird's startled cry,--
One note that ceases soon.

The gardens and, far off, the meadow-land,
Are like the fading depths beneath a sea,
While over waves of misty shadows we
Drift onward, hand in hand.

This is my hour, that you have called your own;
Its hushed beauty silently we share,--
Touched by the wistful wonder in the air
That leaves us so alone.

III
In rain and twilight mist the city street,
Hushed and half-hidden, might this instant be
A dark canal beneath our ba