Classic Poem

Passionate light that lingers in the west,
Lovelier growing as the moments pass,
Must thou depart at rigorous night's behest?
Alas!

The hosts of darkness fill heaven's eastern plain,
Great swelling clouds in triumph, lo! they ride,
Yet thou thine amorous beauty dost disdain
To hide.

While far above, faint wayward cloudlets glow
Like radiant moments seen by memory:
Love's envoys, they are fain to fade and go
With thee.

Tender as every sense at parting is,
The tremulous sky grows pale as death above,
And now enfolds thee with how sad a kiss
Of love!

Weep not, lone sky, nor call the mournful winds
Their wailful music with thine own to make;
Thy Love at dawn, the cerement that binds