In the twilight
M. Lang
[Slowly the light is fading
Down in the crimson west -- ]
Songs half heard in the twilight,
Dying softly to rest.
Broken snatches of music,
Stirring the depths that sleep,
Where memory patient bideth
Her silent watch to keep.
Oh songs! Oh light! Oh silence!
Oh thoughts that come and go!
Oh sad, sweet dreams of sunset,
Whose yearning none may know --
Sad, for their backward looking
To sunsets out of sight --
Sweet, for a hope rings through them,
Of yet undying Light.
Why can I never utter
My dreamings as they rise --
Frame them in worthy setting,
Meet for other eyes?
Why must I bear it always,
This weight of thoughts unsaid?
Words hide but never sound them,
Those depths unfathomèd.
The hidden core of meaning
Lies always out of reach --
A shy, with-drawing secret,
That will not yield to speech.
None but the masters shew it --
For me -- my lips are sealed --
I only know of something
That lieth unrevealed.
Perhaps beyond the sunsets,
The opened lips may come; --
Down, down among the shadows,
We wander blind and dumb.
But there the free expression,
The purgèd eye and ear,
The ripened full fruition
Of all we wait for here.