Page:Poems Rossetti.djvu/191

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TWILIGHT CALM.
163
TWILIGHT CALM.
  OH, pleasant eventide!
  Clouds on the western side
Grow grey and greyer, hiding the warm sun:
The bees and birds, their happy labours done,
  Seek their close nests and bide.

  Screened in the leafy wood
  The stock-doves sit and brood:
The very squirrel leaps from bough to bough
But lazily; pauses; and settles now
  Where once he stored his food.

  One by one the flowers close,
  Lily and dewy rose
Shutting their tender petals from the moon:
The grasshoppers are still; but not so soon
  Are still the noisy crows.

  The dormouse squats and eats
  Choice little dainty bits
Beneath the spreading roots of a broad lime;
Nibbling his fill he stops from time to time
  And listens where he sits.

  From far the lowings come
  Of cattle driven home: