DUSK.

ROSY-LIPPED sunset kisses good-night,

Fades and dies in the western height.

One little star, from the wing of its mother,

Peeps, then follows many another.

Mountain and vale soft shadows blend:

Night is at hand, day at an end.

Holy and calm is the twilight hour.

Passion and strife have lost their power;

Gone is the glare of ardent sun,

Perils of night not yet begun.

Placid and sweet the close of day

As comely Quakeress garbed in gray.

Breath of syringa, floating by,

Comes gale-wafted from arbor nigh.

Beetle booms, and flutters the moth;

Bat is bustling in search of both.

Whippoorwill, far down the lane,

Repeats her melancholy strain.

Homeward his herd the cowboy brings;

Shrill he whistles and gayly he sings;

Sings as he comes in careless glee,

Tinkle the bells for company.

Daisy and Rose demurely wait,

Patiently stand by the farm-yard gate.

Then the good farmer, stout and hale,

Comes from the house with his milking-pail;

Daisy is sober and staid he knows,

But he keeps an eye upon frolicsome Rose,

Till in the stanchions her neck confined,

Compels her to be passing kind.

Tinkle, patter, spatter, and flow, -

"Easy, Miss Mischief, - so, girl, so!"

The generous pail is filled to the brim

With ivory set in a silver rim,

And the pans are ranged in copious store

On the cool damp flags of the dairy floor.

What! can I trust these ears of mine?

The clock in the village striking nine!

High time, my host has often said,

For honest folk to be in bed;

Darkness for sleep and-labor for light:

Well, then, to rest! Sweet world, good night.

C. A. M.