Classic Poem

TWILIGHT C ONTENT

Is it the wind in trees or waters falling?
Is it the canyon-shadows rushing down
The ridgy slopes that seem so to be calling
My heart in twilit tenderness to drown?

Is it the canyon wren's diminuendo
That slips down a soft scale of minor peace?
Is it the spell of night's lone wide crescendo
Of mountain rest upon me — is it these?

Or but some sense of you I cannot measure?
Some memory of a wind of love that blew
Out of your heart to mine? some darkling pleasure
In the first shade of grief I shared with you?

I cannot tell. I only know how surely
In you — and the world's beauty — I rejoice.
The wren is still gone to her nest demurely.
The night has come — yet silence is your voice.