Crepuscular

No creature stirs in the wide fields.         The rifted western heaven yields         The dying sun's illumination.         This is the hour of tribulation         When, with clear sight of eve engendered,         Day's homage to delusion rendered,         Mute at her window sits the soul.         Clouds and skies and lakes and seas,         Valleys and hills and grass and trees,         Sun, moon, and stars, all stand to her         Limbs of one lordless challenger,         Who, without deigning taunt or frown.         Throws a perennial gauntlet down:         "Come conquer me and take thy toll."         No cowardice or fear she knows,         But, as once more she girds, there grows         An unresignd hopelessness         From memory of former stress.         Head bent, she muses whilst he waits:         How with such weapons dint his plates?         How quell this vast and sleepless giant         Calmly, immortally defiant,         How fell him, bind him, and control         With a silver cord and a golden bowl?