Curfew

I

Solemnly, mournfully,

Dealing its dole,

The Curfew Bell

Is beginning to toll.

Cover the embers,

And put out the light;

Toil comes with morning,

And rest with the night.

Dark grow the windows,

And quenched is the fire;

Sound fades into silence,-

All footsteps retire.

No voice in the chambers,

No sound in the hall!

Sleep and oblivion

Reign over all!

II

The book is completed,

And closed, like the day;

And the hand that has written it

Lays it away.

Dim grow its fancies;

Forgotten they lie;

Like coals in the ashes,

They harden and die.

Song sinks into silence,

The story is told,

The windows are darkened,

The hearth-stone is cold.

Darker and darker

The black shadows fall,

Sleep and oblivion

Reign over all.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow