Come, lovely Evening! with thy smile of peace <br />Visit my humble dwelling; welcomed in, <br />Not with loud shouts, and the thronged city's din, <br />But with such sounds as bid all tumult cease <br />Of the sick heart; the grasshopper's faint pipe <br />Beneath the blades of dewy grass unripe, <br />The bleat of the lone lamb, the carol rude <br />Heard indistinctly from the village green, <br />The bird's last twitter, from the hedge-row seen, <br />Where, just before, the scattered crumbs I strewed, <br />To pay him for his farewell song;--all these <br />Touch soothingly the troubled ear, and please <br />The stilly-stirring fancies. Though my hours <br />(For I have drooped beneath life's early showers) <br />Pass lonely oft, and oft my heart is sad, <br />Yet I can leave the world, and feel most glad <br />To meet thee, Evening, here; here my own hand <br />Has decked with trees and shrubs the slopes around, <br />And whilst the leaves by dying airs are fanned, <br />Sweet to my spirit comes the farewell sound, <br />That seems to say: Forget the transient tear <br />Thy pale youth shed--Repose and Peace are here.<br /><br />William Lisle Bowles<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/summer-evening-at-home/
