Now arched dark boughs hang dim and still;
The deep dew glistens up the hill;
Silence trembles. All is still.
Now the sweet siren of the woods,
Philomel, passionately broods,
Or, darkling, hymns love's wildest moods.
Danaë, fainting in her tower,
Feels a sudden sun swim lower,
Gasps beneath the starry shower.
Venus in the pomegranate grove
Flutters like a fluttering dove
Under young Adonis' love.
Leda longs until alight
In the reeds those wings of white
She hears beat the upper night.
Golden now the glowing moon,
Diana over Endymion
Downward bends as in a swoon.
Wherefore, since the gods agree
Youth is sweet and Night is free
And Love pleasure, should not we?

Shepherds all, maidens fair,
Fold your flocks up, for the air
'Gins to thicken, and the sun
Already his great course hath run.
Sweetest slumbers,
And soft silence, fall in numbers
On your eyelids! So farewell:
Thus'll end my evening's knell.