Earth’s activity is stilled;
houses shut their curtained eyes;
men and beasts and birds in silence hide.
Day’s fire faded, all is soft and cool,
and the world’s colored in dark grays,
deep-water-blues, dim purples, and a bright silver,
earth submerged in a deep, serene sea.

No noise, save insects’ rasping harmony,
And then the wind flows in a light stream,
Bearing fragrance of blossom and leaf,
Turning grass to waves,
Setting leaves to ageless, quivering dance.
They whisper, whisper all the night,
repeating secrets, each to each,
in hidden tongues of mother earth.

Fireflies’ silent calls of light
fill shadows all around,
a storm of golden flash and glitter,
earth’s dark alive with wild, heavenly sparks.
And on high, in the heavens,
in the shadowed, solemn blue,
through gauze of clouds the glowing hosts
of brilliant stars in purest white
as lights of some empyrean realm
still veiled from mortal sight.

Enthroned among them in its radiance,
the moon floats o’er dim night,
to bring it some pale, cool portion
of the sun’s white glory,
a mirror of a day elsewhere.
This dream-light gleams o’er all the earth,
soft silver-white shimmer on field, tree, and wall,
all at rest in quiet and in gentle half-light.

Earth lies asleep, in a dream of heaven,
of a night that will not be dark,
but lovely as morning’s light.