THE EQUINOX The old brown mellow houses grow mellower in the nightfall ; A ccharméd air is about them of the keen old days that are dead. Oh, hushed is the song of the morning, hushed in the tremu- lous light-fall, For the light is fading slowly now, and all the legends are said, And all the glamour is fled. Here in the soft grey twilight the mournful evening lingers Upon the road to dream and sleep and all the things that are past ; Here in the shadowy night-fall, with slow reluctant fingers, The poet touches the silent strings, and falls into calm at last As the night grows dim and vast. And the passionate hour of love, of love, is come unto dust and slumber, A gracious memory only stays, a passionless sense remains Of golden hours that are passed and fled, when the joys of love without number Fanned into fire his smouldering heart, and turned into flame his brains With purple and crimson stains. And the hour of the Rose is fallen, and the light of her eyes is fled, There is only a sense of vaguest dream, of calm, unending repose 160