1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
  25. The Crying of Water
  26. A Rose Has Thorns As Well As Honey
  27. Winter
  28. The Dark Cavalier
  29. There is no Life or Death
  30. Sheep in Winter
  31. To a Snowflake
  32. Sextain
  33. A Crocodile
  34. Sea Fever
  35. The Giant Cactus of Arizona
  36. The Coming of Night
  37. Going to the Picnic
  38. Moon Tonight
  39. A Southern Night
  40. Greenness
  41. Twilight
  42. On the Wing
  43. In Summer
  44. Before Parting
  45. Sonnet
  46. The Red Wheelbarrow
  47. Acceptance
  48. At The Pool
  49. Incurable
  50. Bluebird and Cardinal
  51. [Say What You Will, And Scratch My Heart To Find]
  52. The River
  53. Vas Doloris
  54. Squirrel
  55. Ghosts
Twilight

Photo by Mohammad Alizade on Unsplash edited by me

There is an evening twilight of the heart,  
    When its wild passion-waves are lulled to rest,  
And the eye sees life’s fairy scenes depart,  
    As fades the day-beam in the rosy west.  
’Tis with a nameless feeling of regret 
    We gaze upon them as they melt away,  
And fondly would we bid them linger yet,  
    But Hope is round us with her angel lay,  
Hailing afar some happier moonlight hour; 
Dear are her whispers still, though lost their early power.  
In youth the cheek was crimsoned with her glow; 
    Her smile was loveliest then; her matin song 
Was heaven’s own music, and the note of woe 
    Was all unheard her sunny bowers among.  
Life’s little word of bliss was newly born; 
    We knew not, cared not, it was born to die, 
Flushed with the cool breeze and the dews of morn, 
    With dancing heart we gazed on the pure sky,  
And mocked the passing clouds that dimmed its blue, 
Like our own sorrows then—as fleeting and as few.  
And manhood felt her sway too—on the eye,  
    Half realized, her early dreams burst bright,  
Her promised bower of happiness seemed nigh,  
    Its days of joy, its vigils of delight; 
And though at times might lower the thunder-storm, 
    And the red lightnings threaten, still the air 
Was balmy with her breath, and her loved form, 
    The rainbow of the heart was hovering there.  
’Tis in life’s noontide she is nearest seen, 
Her wreath the summer flower, her robe of summer green.  
But though less dazzling in her twilight dress,  
    There’s more of heaven’s pure beam about her now; 
That angel-smile of tranquil loveliness,  
    Which the heart worships, glowing on her brow; 
That smile shall brighten the dim evening star  
    That points our destined tomb, nor e’er depart 
Till the faint light of life is fled afar,  
    And hushed the last deep beating of the heart; 
The meteor-bearer of our parting breath,  
A moonbeam in the midnight cloud of death. 
 

Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790 – 1867) was an American poet and member of the Knickerbocker Group


To read more poems, click here.


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