Down in the west, the sunset gold
Is fading from the sombre cloud,
And a fixed sorrow, hushed and cold,
Is closing round me like a shroud;
Closing with thoughts of twilight hours,
When gaily, on the homestead hill,
Two children played among the flowers —
I would that they were children still.

For as I scan with tear-dimmed eyes
The future, till life's sun hangs low,
No white hand reaches from the skies,
With chrisms of healing for our wo.
And though it may be either mind
Has grown with toil and years and strife,
Experience, like a blightning wind,
Has made a barren waste of life —

A barren waste, whose reach of sands
Lies glowing in the noontide heat,
Where no bright tree of blossoms stands,
Dropping cool shadows round our feet.