Good-Night

THE skylarks are far behind that sang over the

down;

I can hear no more those suburb nightingales;

Thrushes and blackbirds sing in the gardens of the

town

In vain: the noise of man, beast, and machine

prevails.

But the call of children in the unfamiliar streets

That echo with a familiar twilight echoing,

Sweet as the voice of nightingale or lark, completes

A magic of strange welcome, so that I seem a king

Among man, beast, machine, bird, child, and the

ghost

That in the echo lives and with the echo dies.

The friendless town is friendly; homeless, I

not lost;

Though I know none of these doors, and meet but

strangers' eyes.

Never again, perhaps, after to-morrow, shall

I see these homely streets, these church windows

alight,

Not a man or woman or child among them all:

But it is All Friends' Night, a traveller's good

night.