The Tryst
SWEET as the change from pleasant thoughts to sleep
The silver gloaming melted into gloom,
Then came the evening silence rich and deep,
With mingled breaths of dew-released perfume;
The few first stars shone in the azure pale,
Soft as a young nun’s glances through her veil.
Was it for darkness that thou waited, sweet?
Ah, though thy face was dusk in night’s eclipse,
Thy heart betrayed thee by its quickened beat!
I needed not the light to find thy lips,
Nor in the balmy hush of even-time,
To hear one word more sweet than any rhyme.
Charles Lotin Hildreth.