THE evening time is holy;

I sail a boundless sea

Sacred to melancholy,

And wondrous things I see.

The moon shone with a quiet grace;

I gazed into the moon.

The moon shone full upon my face;

I fell into a swoon.

A lovely form was in the air,

I knew it there how soon!

I seemed to see my love's bright hair

Streaming against the moon,

My love's bright eyes so sparkling fair

That shame the stars to gloom,

And her bosom white that may compare

With the lily's purest bloom.

But ah! that rose of Paradise,

Her lip, so full and red,

Grows pale in the evening light and dies,

And a pearly whiteness shed

Over her face seems like a pall.

And how the angels' chime

Comes through the air with a rippling fall

From heaven, soft and sublime.

And now they bear my love away

Up heaven's eternal stair;

And leave me to dream my life away,

To sleep - and find her there.

B. W. W.