Twilight

Spilling a purple coolness on the way
Where, late, the sun went by with burning tread,
Comes dusk, a shadowy presence, to allay
The ache of eyes and hearts sun-surfeited.
She brings the dewy quiet; and a blur
Of scents, wild mint and clover, from her gown
Is shaken. At the lightest brush of her
Beauty comes back to stricken field and town.

The cool dusk comes on piteous, hushed feet,
Trailing her cloudy draperies; and where
The violet deepens on the dusty street
Are men grown twilight-hearted unaware . . .
The laggard day with all its fret is gone
The way of any spent leaf on the lawn.

^__Margaret Perkins Briggs

Contemporary Kansas Poetry
Helen Rhoda Hoopes
page 24
(Kansas City: Joseph D. Havens Company. 1927)