After Dark

After dark vapours have
oppress'd our plains
For a long dreary season comes a day

Born of the gentle south
And clears away
From the sick heavens
All unseemly stains

And calmest thoughts
Come round us as of leaves
Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves

The anxious mouth relieving of it pains
Takes a long lost night the feel of May
The eyelids with the passing coolness play
Like rose leaves with the drip of summer rains

And calmest thoughts
come round us as of leaves
Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves

The gradual sand that through
An hour-glass runs
A woodland rivulet a poet's death