Sunset In Arkansas Poem by Albert Pike

Sunset again! Behind the massy green
Of the continuous oaks the sun hath fallen,
And his last rays have struggled through, between
The leaf-robed branches, as hopes intervene
Amid gray cares. The western sky is wallen
With shadowy mountains, built upon the marge
Of the horizon, from Eve's purple sheen,
And thin, gray clouds, that insolently lean
Their silver cones upon the crimson verge
Of the high Zenith, while their unseen base
Is rocked by lightning. It will show its eye
When dusky Night comes. Eastward, you can trace
No stain, no spot of cloud upon a sky,
Pure as an angel's brow.
The winds have folded up their swift wings now,
And, all asleep, high up in their cloud-cradles lie.

Beneath the trees, the dusky, purple glooms
Are growing deeper, more material,
In windless solitude. The young flower-blooms
Richly exhale their thin, invisible plumes
Of odor, which they yield not at the call
Of the hot sun. The birds all sleep within
Unshaken nests; save the gray owl, that booms
His plaintive cry, like one that mourns strange dooms;
And the sad whip-poor-will, with lonely din.
There is a deep, calm beauty all around,
A heavy, massive, melancholy look,
A unison of lonely sight and sound,
Which touch us, till the soul can hardly brook
Its own sad feelings here.
They do not wring from the full heart a tear,
But give us heavy thoughts, like reading a sad book.

Not such thy sunsets, oh New England! Thou
Hast more wild grandeur in thy noble eye,
More majesty upon thy rugged brow.
When Sunset pours on thee his May-time glow,
He looks on capes and promontories high,
Gray granite mountain, rock and precipice,
Crowned with the white wreaths of the long-lived snow;
On sober glades, and meadows wide and low;
On wild old woods, gloomy with mysteries;
On cultivated fields, hedged with mossed rocks,
And greening with the husbandman's young treasure;
On azure ocean, foaming with fierce shocks
Against stout shores, that his dominion measure;
On towns and villages,
And environs wealthy with flowers and trees,
Full of gray, pleasant shades, and sacred to calm leisure.

When Sunset radiantly unfolds his wing
Upon thy Occident, and fills the clouds
With his rich spirit, while the laughing Spring
Leans towards the arms of Summer, like a king
He treads the West, and sends in glittering crowds
His flocks of colors forth upon the river
Of the blue sky, there spirit-like to cling
To the cloud-cliffs and waves, there wandering
And circling westwardly the world for ever.
Thy sunsets are more brilliant and intense
But not so melancholy or so calm,
As this that now is fast retreating hence,
Shading his heavy eyes with misty palm,
Lulled to an early sleep
By Thunder, from the western twilight's deep,
Under the far horizon muttering a stern psalm.