Below The Sunset's Range Of Rose

Below the sunset's range of rose,     Below the heaven's deepening blue,     Down woodways where the balsam blows,     And milkweed tufts hang, gray with dew,     A Jersey heifer stops and lows -     The cows come home by one, by two.     There is no star yet: but the smell     Of hay and pennyroyal mix     With herb aromas of the dell,     Where the root-hidden cricket clicks:     Among the ironweeds a bell     Clangs near the rail-fenced clover-ricks.     She waits upon the slope beside     The windlassed well the plum trees shade,     The well curb that the goose-plums hide;     Her light hand on the bucket laid,     Unbonneted she waits, glad-eyed,     Her gown as simple as her braid.     She sees fawn-colored backs among     The sumacs now; a tossing horn     Its clashing bell of copper rung:     Long shadows lean upon the corn,     And slow the day dies, scarlet stung,     The cloud in it a rosy thorn.     Below the pleasant moon, that tips     The tree tops of the hillside, fly     The flitting bats; the twilight slips,     In firefly spangles, twinkling by,     Through which _he_ comes: Their happy lips     Meet - and one star leaps in the sky.     He takes her bucket, and they speak     Of married hopes while in the grass     The plum drops glowing as her cheek;     The patient cows look back or pass:     And in the west one golden streak     Burns as if God gazed through a glass.