The Twilight Witch

From the Omaha Daily Bee, October 10, 1914. By Madison Cawein.

The twilight witch comes with her stars
    And strews them through the blue;
Then breathes below the sunset bars
    A breath of meadow rue;
She trails her veil across the skies
    And mutters to the trees,
And in the wood, with firefly eyes
    She wakes the mysteries.
The twilight witch, with elf and fay,
Is coming down the slumber way,
    Sleep, my dearie, sleep.

The twilight witch, with crescent moon,
    Stoops in the wooded hill;
She answers to the owlet’s tune,
    And to the whippoorwill.
She leans above the reedy pool
    And wakes the drowsy frog,
And with the toadstool, dim and cool,
    Rims gray the old dead log.
The twilight witch comes stealing down
To take you off to slumber town.
    Sleep, my dearie, sleep.

The twilight witch, with wind-like tread,
    Has entered in the room;
She steals around your trundle bed
    And whispers in the gloom;
She says, “I brought my steed along,
    My faery steed of gleams,
To bear you, like a breath of song,
    Into the land of dreams.
I am the witch who takes your hand
And leads you off to faeryland,
    The far-off land of sleep.”