Poems (Hoffman)/Tonight
TO-NIGHT
Gone are the changing shadows of the gloaming,Lost the weird fascination of their spell;My thoughts like twilight truants idly roamingTurn sadly homeward, loath to say farewell.
Darkness has veiled the landscape from my visionBut Fancy chooses shadow for her art,She wreathes the stilly night in flowers ElysianAnd strews the silent threshold of the heart.
She comes and gathers up the heartaches oldenAnd flings them out upon the wandering breeze,She scatters Hope's bright buds but half unfoldenWhere grew the briers of Fate's austere decrees.
She tunes the rusting lyres of Love and BeautyAnd times them to the twinkling of the stars,She covers up life's page of hard, plain dutyWith glory like the sunset's lustrous bars.
All o'er our happy land fond hearts are breakingAnd tears are bathing ruins, wrecks and blight,Thousands of souls with awful guilt are quakingAnd many a home is desolate to-night.
But over all a seraph spreads her pinionsHer graceful form is poised in breezeless air,Her mission to all nations and dominionsTo sprinkle holy balm on earth's despair;
So though so many hearts are bowed with sorrowAnd Love is weeping o'er time's wreck and blight,Hope giveth promise of a bright to-morrowAnd Mercy hovers o'er the world to-night.