O what an eve was that which ushered in The night that crowned the wish I cherished long!
Heaven’s curtains oped to see the night begin, And infant winds broke lightly into song;
Methought the hours in softly-swelling sound Wailed funeral dirges for the dying light;
I seemed to stand upon a neutral ground Between the confines of the day and night;
For o’er the east Night stretched her sable rod, And ranked her stars in glittering array,
While, in the west, the golden twilight trod With [burning] crimsons on the verge of day.
Bright bars of cloud formed in the glowing even
A Jacob-ladder joining earth and heaven.

Evening Solace

The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;­
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
And days may pass in gay confusion,
And nights in rosy riot fly,
While, lost in Fame's or Wealth's illusion,
The memory of the Past may die.

But, there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart's best feelings gather home.
Then in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe;
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish,
Now cause but some mild tears to flow.

And feelings, once as strong as passions,
Float softly back-­a faded dream;
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,
The tale of others' sufferings seem.
Oh ! when the heart is freshly bleeding,
How longs it for that time to be,
When, through the mist of years receding,
Its woes but live in reverie !

And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer,
On evening shade and loneliness;
And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer,
Feel no untold and strange distress­
Only a deeper impulse given
By lonely hour and darkened room,
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven,
Seeking a life and world to come.

The happiest heart that ever beat Was in some quiet breast That found the common daylight sweet, And left to Heaven the rest.

Let me pass over those secret and hidden dispensations of God which each holy person’s mind sees operative in a special way within itself at given moments;
over that heavenly inpouring of spiritual gladness by which the downcast mind is uplifted by an inspired joy;
over those fiery ecstasies of heart and the joyful consolations at once unspeakable and unheard of, by which those who occasionally fall into a listless torpor are raised as out of the deepest sleep to the most fervent prayer.

Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind.

O beauty of the midnight skies!
O mystery of each distant star !
O dreaming hours, whose magic lies
In rest and calm, with Day afar!
Thanks for the higher moods that wake
Our thoughtful and immortal part !—
Out on our life, could we not make
A spiritual temple of the heart ?

Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.