Slowly sinks the sun. The evening takes from night a deeper tone;
Birds on restless wing are wheeling with a grace and strength their own.
Martins! How your note reminds me of the days so long ago,
In the time when care or sorrow ne'er had touched me with their woe!
Back your song, this evening, takes me, back within that golden past,
And I seem to see the village — and the spell of yore is cast
Once again about my spirit! Memory brings before my view
Friends and faces long since vanished — sounds and scenes that once I knew.
Till the sea-girt town uprises from the mist, in verdure drest,
Borne as jewel in its setting on the grand old ocean's breast;
O'er the waves the bell sounds clearly with its call to evening prayer,
And the martins wheel and circle, now, with swift wing through the air.
So I muse while twilight summons once again the long ago,
And its clustered memories fill my brooding heart, and overflow.
Youth and love, and hope, aweary in these years have grown and I
Walk afaint in life's rough pathway where erstwhile my feet did fly.
But I think when Azrael greets me I would fain the hour were mine
‘ Twixt the sunset and the even — at the summer day's decline.
So the martins through the ether in their graceful flight should be
Like the harbingers of freedom to the soul from earth set free!