When evening comes to its gentle arias

along the dusky cove,

and the blue heron flies like a slow arrow

along the selvages of the cove,

as if to give its signal for fine music,

and the little birds who have been so warm

all day have gone in among the pine-spills

for their tithe of rest –

the white bridge joining bank to bank of the tidal river

takes the hushed tones of evening to it ingratiatingly;

the gulls having nothing more to say

to each other – fold wings as pure hands are

folded for a silent thought.

I stand with them all in high salute,

saying to myself: “thanks – well done – beautiful things –

I receive my width of grace from you

and am put to rest with evening singing.”

Marsden Hartley was born in Lewiston in 1877 and grew up there. Later he lived in New York City, where he became one of America’s best-known modernist painters, and also wrote poems and essays. He spent most of his later years working in Maine, and died in Ellsworth in 1943. This poem is reprinted by permission of Yale University.