A Vesper Sonnet

This violet eve is like a waveless stream
Celestial, from the rapt horizon’s brink,
Assuaging day with the diviner drink
Of temperate ecstasy, and dews, and dream.
The wine-warm dusks, that brim the valley, gleam
With here and there a lonely casement. Cease
The impetuous purples from the sky of peace,
Like God’s mood in tranquillity supreme.

The encircling uplands east and west lie clear
In thin aërial amber, threaded fine,--
Where bush-fires gnaw the bramble-thickets sere,--
With furtive scarlet. Through the hush benign
One white-throat voices, till the stars appear,
The benediction of the Thought Divine.