DARTMOOR NIGHT

Now twilight spreads her cool and amber plume, Descending on the solitudes until All detail dies: the valley and the hill Together darkling roll and merge into the gloom. Faints the far emerald west and day is done; White Venus, throbbing on the dusky gold, Swings out her lamp above the weald and wold, While little, earth-born flames make answer one by one. A child upon her mighty mother’s breast, Earth cuddles in the bosom of old Night, Who, gathering coomb and woodland, heath and height, Opens her dewy wings to hide their dreamless rest. The mists are trailing grey by watersmeet, Night-hidden in the forest far below, And where their pearly-paven vapours flow, The Huntress upward steals to find her starry seat. Her waxing splendours over moss and mire Flood fen and barrow, reeve and pool and burn, The lone, high tors, the tracks that wind and turn Where the quartz crystal shines with dim and tremulous fire. She marks the stone-man’s lodges empty lie; The broken folds, the tinner’s delving place; She lights the cairn, the cross, the faltering trace Of bygone dead who homed in this immensity. From cottage window fades the ruby gem And glimmer moonbeams only; while the moon, Mounting to heaven upon her silver shoon, A sovereign sceptre holds and wears the diadem. O Queen of sleep and silence, thou shalt reign, With lustral glory poured to soothe and bless The least small life in all the wilderness, Till morning stars awake and sing the dawn again.