Night fell one year ago, like this.
He had been writing steadily.
Among these dusky walls of books,
How bright he looked, intense as flame!
Suddenly he paused,
The firelight in his hair,
And said, "The time has come to go."
I took his hand;
We watched the logs burn out;
The apple boughs fingered the window;
Down the cool, spring night
A slim, white moon leaned to the hill.
To-night the trees are budded white,
And the same pale moon slips through the dusk.
O little buds, tap-tapping on the pane,
O white moon,
I wonder if he sleeps in woods
Where there are leaves?
Or if he lies in some black trench,
His hands, his kind hands, kindling flame that kills?
Or if, or if ...
He is here now, to bid me last good-night?

About this poem
"Night Fell" was published in Florence Ripley Mastin's book "Green Leaves" (J. T. White & Co, 1918).

About Florence Ripley Mastin
Florence Ripley Mastin was born in Wayne, Penn., in 1886. She published several books of poetry, including "Cables of Cobweb" (1935) and "Over the Tappen Zee" (1962). Mastin died in 1968.

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This poem is in the public domain. Distributed by King Features Syndicate