In heavens of rivered blue, that sunset dyes With glaucous flame, deep in the west the day Stands Midas-like; or, wading on his way, Touches with splendor all the twilight skies. Each cloud that, like a stepping-stone, he tries With rosy foot, transforms its sober gray To blazing gold; while, ray on crystal ray, Within his wake the stars like bubbles rise. So should the artist in his work accord All things with beauty, and communicate His soul’s high magic and divinity To all he does; and, hoping no reward, Toil onward, making darkness aureate With light of worlds that be and are to be.
I saw the day like some great monarch die, Gold-couched, behind the clouds’ rich tapestries. Then, purple-sandaled, clothed in silences Of sleep, through halls of skyey lazuli, The twilight, like a mourning queen, trailed by, Dim-paged of dreams and shadowy mysteries; And now the night, the star-robed child of these, In meditative loveliness draws nigh. Earth,--like to Romeo,--deep in dew and scent, Beneath Heaven’s window, watching till a light, Like some white blossom, in its square be set,-- Lifts a faint face unto the firmament, That, with the moon, grows gradually bright, Bidding him climb and clasp his Juliet.
Corn-colored clouds upon a sky of gold, And ’mid their sheaves,--where, like a daisy-bloom Left by the reapers to the gathering gloom, The star of twilight flames,--as Ruth, ’tis told, Dreamed homesick ’mid the harvest fields of old, The Dusk goes gleaning color and perfume From Bible slopes of heaven, that illume Her pensive beauty deep in shadows stoled. Hushed is the forest; and blue vale and hill Are still, save for the brooklet, sleepily Stumbling the stone with one foam-fluttering foot: Save for the note of one far whippoorwill, And in my heart _her_ name,--like some sweet bee Within a rose,--blowing a fairy flute.
The bubbled blue of morning-glory spires, Balloon-blown foam of moonflowers, and sweet snows Of clematis, through which September goes, Song-hearted, rich in realized desires, Are flanked with hotter hues: with tawny fires Of acrid marigolds,--that light long rows Of lamps,--and salvias, red as day’s red close,-- That torches seem,--by which the Month attires Barbaric beauty; like some Asian queen, Towering imperial in her two-fold crown Of harvest and of vintage; all her form Gold and majestic purple: in her mien The might of motherhood; her baby brown, Abundance, high on one exultant arm.