The Fall of Night

my new favorite Merton poem

THE FALL OF NIGHT

When the eleventh hour 
Unbars the burning west,
And all the clouds go home like flocks, 
The pines upon our barrier,
Stand in the gates of night, like laborers, 
And wait their pay.

A shepherd scans the white accounting of the evening star, 
And moonlight fires a brittle spear Into the windows of the cottager:
To the red west, the …