Page 305 - Malay sketches

EVENING

silvery sheen, herald of that great orb of splendour
clears the mountain and sheds
which, rising rapidly,
a flood of wonderful, indescribable, mellow radiance
over forest, plain, and sea, softening what is crude,
with brilliance the most
pointing striking features,
and casting into a fathomless shadow the dark
There
valleys of the western slopes. is nothing
cold about this Eastern moon. Seen, half-risen,
against the dark foliage of the mountain, it glitters
like molten silver, dazzling the eyes, and as it soars
serenely upward seems the very perfection of beauty,
and
light, purity.
Strange that the delight and glory of mankind
since ever the earth was peopled, the emblem of
unattainable longing, should be only a gigantic
cinder.

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