The Stars and the Falling Dew

The sun, like a hero, whose chariot rolled

In glory, has reached the west;

And wrapped in his mantle of crimson and gold,

Has sunken away to rest.

The stars from the skies

Look forth like the eyes

Of Angels, the earth to view;

While timid and soft,

Their light form aloft,

Comes down with the falling dew.

The flowers, that, oppressed by the monarch of day,

Have bowing confessed his power,

Are lifting their foreheads, relieved of his ray,

To the cool of the evening hour.

And each holding up

Her emerald cup,

Her delicate draught to renew,

Their trust is repaid,

While their thirst is allayed

By the drops of the falling dew.

The birds are at rest in their own little homes,

Their songs are forgotten in sleep;

And low and uncertain the murmuring comes

From over the slumbering deep.

The breezes that sighed

Have fainted and died

In the boughs they were quivering through,

And motion and sound

Have ceased from around

To yield to the falling dew.

And gently it comes, as the shadowy wing

Of night o'er the earth is unfurled;

A silent, refreshing and spirit-like thing,

To brighten and solace the world!

As the face of a friend.

When in sorrow we bend—

Like a heart ever tender and true,

When darkness is ours,

To the earth and the flowers,

Are the stars and the falling dew.

By Hannah Flagg Gould

Artist Philippe Fernandez