by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872 - 1906)
Sunset
Language: English
The river sleeps beneath the sky, And clasps the shadows to its breast; The crescent moon shines dim on high; And in the lately radiant west The gold is fading into gray. Now stills the lark his festive lay, And mourns with me the dying day. While in the south the first faint star Lifts to the night its silver face, And twinkles to the moon afar Across the heaven’s graying space, Low murmurs reach me from the town, As Day puts on her sombre crown, And shakes her mantle darkly down.
Confirmed with The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1913.
Text Authorship:
- by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872 - 1906), "Sunset" [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Adolphus Cunningham Hailstork (b. 1941), "Sunset", 1987 [ voice and piano ], from Five Dunbar Lyrics, no. 4 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Zenobia Powell (1908 - 2004), "Sunset", 1977-1983/1995 [ voice and piano ], from Cycle of Songs on Poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2020-06-03
Line count: 14
Word count: 92