Spring Twilight

The sun set late; and left along the west     A belt of furious ruby, o'er which snows     Of clouds unrolled; each cloud a mighty breast     Blooming with almond-rose.     The sun set late; and wafts of wind beat down,     And cuffed the blossoms from the blossoming quince;     Scattered the pollen from the lily's crown,     And made the clover wince.     By dusky forests, through whose fretful boughs     In flying fragments shot the evening's flame,     Adown the tangled lane the quiet cows     With dreamy tinklings came.     The sun set late; but hardly had he gone     When o'er the moon's gold-litten crescent there,     Clean Phosphor, polished as a precious stone,     Burned in fair deeps of air.     As from faint stars the glory waned and waned,     The crickets made the oldtime garden shrill;     And past the luminous pasture-lands complained     The first far whippoorwill.