GLOAMING 



HILD, go and pray for see! the night is here! 

 Through cloudy rifts the golden lights appear; 

 The hills faint outline trembles in the mist ; 

 Scarce is heard a distant chariot list! 

 The world 's at rest ; the tree beside the way 

 Gives to the evening wind the dust of day. 



Twilight unlocks the hiding-place of stars; 

 They gleam and glow behind night's shadowy bars. 

 The fringe of carmine narrows in the west, 

 The moonlight water lies in shining rest; 

 Furrow and foot path melt and disappear; 

 The anxious traveler doubts the far and near. 



VICTOR HUGO. 



Gloaming is day's aftermath. When the labor of the light is ended, 

 when our work lies behind us like a plain crossed in journeying toward 

 high hills, there is a borderland sweet as dreams lying dim between 

 day and dark. This is the gloaming. It is day's respite from itself, 

 when what we are is merging into what we are to be; when the world 

 seems far removed, as waves beating on a distant shore; when, as in 

 a neutral territory, we belong neither to to-day nor to to-morrow, but 

 in a certain high regard belong to ourselves alone, and thus sit solitary. 



Gloaming is the time of glooming, gloam and gloom being forms 

 of one word; and so understood, how full is the descriptive energy of 

 the name for what it pictures! Not day nor night, nor light nor black- 

 ness, but this, light gloaming into lampless darkness. Gloom sifting 

 through the skies like powdered smoke, until the world is changed, and 

 the one word on the gloaming's lips is, "Toil, take rest." 



And this gray gloaming is a time of rest for the spirit. The glory 

 of the sunset fades. Light retreats like a vanquished army. Gray 

 quiet falls on land and sky. An unseen angel whispers, "Peace." 



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