Lost Twilight

ONCE with the grave Hesperides
I drank the sunset to the lees:
The evening star, the smouldering rose
Of light that neither comes nor goes.
And one by one the maidens chose
Their cave of sleep in mist alone;
And night, like closing doors of stone,
Guarded my heart in deep repose.

But now day withers, night comes on;
The tall Hesperides are gone.
I surely knew them. Where are they?
The evening star set yesterday.
With lights that flash and words that flay
The years go by me in this land,
Divided sharp on either hand
In light and dark like foes at bay.

There was a timeless time that seems
One with the footfall of my dreams,
Yet I remember it as well
As echoes from a silent bell
Or the sea sounding in a shell.
Words fail when we would say these thing
No phrase there is that speaks or sings,
And what we know we can not tell.