Evening (Poem by Edwin John Dove Pratt)

Evening

By Edwin John Dove Pratt

So calm the air; the sunset's dying beat

    Wafts slowly to me from the distant brim

    Of silent waters; evening shadows dim

Press close the day's spent hours, loath to greet

The veiled advance of night; slumbering sweet

    The stillness as the purple threads the rim

    Of yonder crimson, preluding a hymn

Of choral wavelets silvering at my feet.

O restful solitude! Here life's frail trust

    Grows, nurtured near the heart of mystery,

Expands into fruition, from the clod

    Of cynic trappings, orbs to symmetry — 

The place where light strikes through Time's circling dust,

And reverent hush attends the tread of God.