Evening

I will go out and meet the evening hours

And greet them one by one as friend greets friend,

Where many a tall poplar summit towers

On summit, shrines of quietness that send

Their silence through the blue air like a wreath

Of sacrificial flame unwavering

In the deep evening stillness, when no breath

Sets the faint tendrils floating on light wing

Over the long dim fields mist-islanded.

I will go out and meet them one by one,

And learn the things old times have left unsaid,

And read the secrets of an age long gone,

And out of twilight and the darkening plain

Build up all that old quiet world again.