“the moon and the stars / were the gifts you gave / to the dark, and the endless skies”

For Poetry Monday:

“The evening darkens over,” Robert Bridges

The evening darkens over
After a day so bright
The windcapt waves discover
That wild will be the night.
There’s sound of distant thunder.

The latest sea-birds hover
Along the cliff’s sheer height;
As in the memory wander
Last flutterings of delight,
White wings lost on the white.

There’s not a ship in sight;
And as the sun goes under
Thick clouds conspire to cover
The moon that should rise yonder.
Thou art alone, fond lover.


While Bridges was Poet Laureate 1913-30, I confess I mostly think of him as Hopkins’s university friend and literary executor.

---L.

Subject quote from The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, written by Ewan MacColl, sung by Peggy Seeger. (Roberta Flack covered it later.)