Now is the healing, quiet hour that fills This gay, green world with peace and grateful rest. Where lately over opalescent hills The blood of slain Day reddened all the west, Now comes at Night’s behest, A glow that over all the forest spills, As with the gold of promised daffodils. Of all hours this is best. It is the time for thoughts of holy things, Of half-forgotten friends and one’s own folk. O’er all, the garden-scented sweetness clings To mingle with the wood fire’s drifting smoke. A bull-frog’s startled croak Sounds from the gully where the last bird sings His laggard vesper hymn, with folded wings; And Night spreads forth her cloak. Keeping their vigil where the great range yearns, Like rigid sentries stand the wise old gums. On blundering wings a night-moth wheels and turns And lumbers on, mingling its drowsy hums With that far roll of drums, Where the swift creek goes tumbling midst the ferns . . . Now, as the first star in the zenith burns, The dear, soft darkness comes.