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Home  »  An American Anthology, 1787–1900  »  530 Between the Sunken Sun and the New Moon

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Paul HamiltonHayne

530 Between the Sunken Sun and the New Moon

BETWEEN the sunken sun and the new moon,

I stood in fields through which a rivulet ran

With scarce perceptible motion, not a span

Of its smooth surface trembling to the tune

Of sunset breezes: “O delicious boon,”

I cried, “of quiet! wise is Nature’s plan,

Who, in her realm, as in the soul of man,

Alternates storm with calm, and the loud noon

With dewy evening’s soft and sacred lull:

Happy the heart that keeps its twilight hour,

And, in the depths of heavenly peace reclined,

Loves to commune with thoughts of tender power;

Thoughts that ascend, like angels beautiful,

A shining Jacob’s ladder of the mind.”