The Spike or Victoria University College Review
Vesper
Vesper
I.
I'm a franklin at seven,
When the curtain is drawn.
I enter my heaven,
Higher than the dawn;
With pipe and Stevenson,
When the day's work is done.
II.
Leaps my little Jean
So I cannot turn the page
Look! Her curls are between
Bozzy and the sage;
Keats I close, ere begun,
When the day's work is done.
III
One smile will await,
Like foam on the shore,
My tread soon or late.
I glean it evermore,
Like the dark world the sun,
When the day's work is done.
IV
Somewhere in my heart
There is born, there is born,
A still, diviner part
To lift me when forlorn—
When Love to me will run,
When the day's work is done.
V
Then we rush to a look
That is soft as the snow,
And clear as the brook
Where the moonbeams go
White as water's fun:
When the day's work is done.
VI
Then at last, then at last,
All toys put away:
With life overpast,
And night for the day:
Asleep we are one—
When the world's work is done.
Hubert Church.