  Our Lady of the Twilight From out the sunset-lands Comes gently stealing o'er the world And stretches out her hands, Over the blotched and broken wall, The blind and foetid lane, She stretches out her hands and all Is beautiful again. No factory chimneys can defile The beauty of her dress: She stoops down with her heavenly smile To heal and love and bless: All tortured things, all evil powers, All shapes of dark distress Are turned to fragrance and to flowers Beneath her kind caress. Our Lady of the Twilight, She melts our prison-bars! She makes the sea forget the shore, She fills the sky with stars, Chimney and shed and dome, Turns them to fairy palaces, Then calls her children home. She stoops to bless the stunted tree, And from the furrowed plain, And from the wrinkled brow she smooths The lines of care and pain: Hers are the gentle hands and eyes And hers the peaceful breath That ope, in sunset-softened skies, The quiet gates of death. Our Lady of the Twilight, She hath such gentle hands, So lovely are the gifts she brings From out the sunset-lands, So bountiful, so merciful So sweet of soul is she; And over all the world she draws Her cloak of charity. |
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