Poems (Hoffman)/Tonight

by Martha Lavinia Hoffman

TO-NIGHT

Gone are the changing shadows of the gloaming,
Lost the weird fascination of their spell;
My thoughts like twilight truants idly roaming
Turn sadly homeward, loath to say farewell.

Darkness has veiled the landscape from my vision
But Fancy chooses shadow for her art,
She wreathes the stilly night in flowers Elysian
And strews the silent threshold of the heart.

She comes and gathers up the heartaches olden
And flings them out upon the wandering breeze,
She scatters Hope's bright buds but half unfolden
Where grew the briers of Fate's austere decrees.

She tunes the rusting lyres of Love and Beauty
And times them to the twinkling of the stars,
She covers up life's page of hard, plain duty
With glory like the sunset's lustrous bars.

All o'er our happy land fond hearts are breaking
And tears are bathing ruins, wrecks and blight,
Thousands of souls with awful guilt are quaking
And many a home is desolate to-night.

But over all a seraph spreads her pinions
Her graceful form is poised in breezeless air,
Her mission to all nations and dominions
To sprinkle holy balm on earth's despair;

So though so many hearts are bowed with sorrow
And Love is weeping o'er time's wreck and blight,
Hope giveth promise of a bright to-morrow
And Mercy hovers o'er the world to-night.