Hark! As a bubbling fount That suddenly wells And rises in tall spiral waves and flying spray, The high, sweet, quavering, throbbing voice Of the nightingale! Not yet the purple veil of dusk has fallen, But o'er the yellow band That binds the west The vesper star beats like the pulse of heaven. Up from the fields The peasants troop Singing their songs of love: And oft the twang of thin string'd music breaks High o'er the welcoming shouts, The homing laughter. The whirling bats are out, And to and fro the blue swifts wheel Where, i' the shallows of the dusk, The grey moths flutter Over the pale blooms Of the night-flowering bay. Softly adown the slopes, And o'er the plain, @3Ave Maria@1 Solemnly soundeth. The long day is over. Dusk, and silence now: And Night, that is as dew On the Flower of the World. |