Twilight [poem by Louisa Lawson]

[Editor: This poem by Louisa Lawson was published in “The Lonely Crossing” and Other Poems (1905).]

Twilight.

Though labour may claim and cover
The best of our waking hours,
Whatever we owe another
We feel that the dusk is ours.

’Tis then that the hard views taken
Of things in the day-glare seen,
Will soften, and tint, and waken,
And tone ’neath a twilight screen.

While the night-bird softly tenders
Sweet trebles in monotone,
And the king of day surrenders
To the queen of night his throne —

When the earth and the sky are lovers,
And present and past are wed,
And the satisfied soul discovers
How surely God hath led.

And then as the heart confesses
The sins of a selfish way,
The spirit of pardon blesses
And closes the gates of day.

Source:
Louisa Lawson, “The Lonely Crossing” and Other Poems, Sydney: Dawn Office, [1905], pp. 11-12

Editor’s notes:
hath = (archaic) has

’neath = (vernacular) beneath

’tis = (archaic) a contraction of “it is”