Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/557

 459. Ode to Evening

If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, Like thy own solemn springs, Thy springs and dying gales;

O nymph reserved, while now the bright-hair'd sun Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, With brede ethereal wove, O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing, Or where the beetle winds His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises, 'midst the twilight path Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum: Now teach me, maid composed, To breathe some soften'd strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit, As, musing slow, I hail Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding-star arising shows His paly circlet, at his warning lamp The fragrant hours, and elves Who slept in buds the day,