18 (the evening beckons)
THE EVENING beckons, and I would fain follow the travellers who sailed in the last ferry of the ebb-tide to cross the dark.
Some were for home, some for the farther shore, yet all have ventured to sail.
But I sit alone at the landing, having left my home and missed the boat: summer is gone and my winter harvest is lost.
I wait for that love which gathers failures to sow them in tears on the dark, that they may bear fruit when day rises anew.