read_this_aloud tender square the sounds in this poem have got me seriously swooning. bring them to life with your voice and be dazzled. william collins, “ode to evening” (1746) if aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, may hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, like thy own solemn springs, thy springs and dying gales, o nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, with brede ethereal wove, o’erhang his wavy bed: now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat with short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing, or where the beetle winds his small but sullen horn as oft he rises ‘midst the twilight path against the pilgrim, borne in heedless hum: now teach me, maid composed, to breathe some softened strain, whose numbers stealing through thy darkening vale may not unseemly with its stillness suit, as musing slow, i hail thy genial loved return! for when thy folding-star arising shows his paly circlet, at his warning lamp the fragrant Hours, and elves who slept in flowers the day, and many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge and sheds the freshning dew, and, lovelier still, the pensive Pleasures sweet prepare thy shadowy car. then lead, calm votress, where some sheety lake cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallowed pile or upland fallows grey reflect its last cool gleam. but when chill blustering winds, or driving rain, forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut that from the mountain’s side views wilds, and swelling floods, and hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires, and hears their simple bell, and marks o’er all thy dewy fingers draw the gradual dusky veil. while Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, and bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve; while Summer loves to sport beneath thy lingering light; while sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves; or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, affrights thy shrinking train and rudely rends thy robes; so long, sure-found beneath the sylvan shed, shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, rose-lipped Health, thy gentlest influence own, and hymn thy favorite name! 210929 ... raze i just read this out loud, and it was glorious. the words seemed to nudge me into an approximation of an irish brogue (dialect fail, i know), so that happened too. 210929 what's it to you? who go blather from