free-verse24 lines
Crepuscular
by Sir John Collings SquireNo creature stirs in the wide fields.
The rifted western heaven yields
The dying sun's illumination.
This is the hour of tribulation
When, with clear sight of eve engendered,
Day's homage to delusion rendered,
Mute at her window sits the soul.
Clouds and skies and lakes and seas,
Valleys and hills and grass and trees,
Sun, moon, and stars, all stand to her
Limbs of one lordless challenger,
Who, without deigning taunt or frown.
Throws a perennial gauntlet down:
"Come conquer me and take thy toll."
No cowardice or fear she knows,
But, as once more she girds, there grows
An unresign'd hopelessness
From memory of former stress.
Head bent, she muses whilst he waits:
How with such weapons dint his plates?
How quell this vast and sleepless giant
Calmly, immortally defiant,
How fell him, bind him, and control
With a silver cord and a golden bowl?