The Twilight Turns From Amethyst

The twilight turns from amethyst
To deep and deeper blue,
The lamp fills with a pale green glow
The trees of the avenue.

The old piano plays an air,
Sedate and slow and gay;
She bends upon the yellow keys,
Her head inclines this way.

Shy thought and grave wide eyes and hands
That wander as they list,
The twilight turns to darker blue
With lights of amethyst.

James Joyce

James Joyce was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet, teacher, and literary critic. He is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. Joyce is best known for his groundbreaking work 'Ulysses' (1922), and for his other significant works including 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' (1916), 'Finnegans Wake' (1939), and the short story collection 'Dubliners' (1914). He was a key figure in the modernist avant-garde movement.

James Joyce

A Memory Of The Players In A Mirror At Midnight

James Joyce, Simple Poetry

Flood

James Joyce, Simple Poetry

Thou Leanest To The Shell Of Night

James Joyce, Simple Poetry

Bahnhofstrasse

James Joyce, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Nightpiece

Gaunt in gloom,
The pale stars their torches,
Enshrouded, wave.
Ghostfires from heaven's far verges faint illume,
Arches on soaring arches,
Night's sindark nave.

Seraphim,
The lost hosts awaken
To service till
In moonless gloom each lapses muted, dim,
Raised when she has and shaken
Her thurible.

And long and loud,
To night's nave upsoaring,
A starknell tolls
As the bleak incense surges, cloud on cloud,
Voidward from the adoring
Waste of souls.

James Joyce

Twilight.

The setting Sun withdraws his yellow light,
A gloomy staining shadows over all,
While the brown beetle, trumpeter of Night,
Proclaims his entrance with a droning call.
How pleasant now, where slanting hazels fall
Thick, o'er the woodland stile, to muse and lean;
To pluck a woodbine from the shade withal,
And take short snatches o'er the moisten'd scene;
While deep and deeper shadows intervene,
And leave fond Fancy moulding to her will
The cots, and groves, and trees so dimly seen,
That die away more undiscerned still;
Bringing a sooty curtain o'er the sight,
And calmness in the bosom still as night.

John Clare

Twilight.

The sun is sinking where the western hills
    The vision bounds with rugged summits old,
And with his latest beam he brightly gilds
    And crowns with amethyst and gold.

The distant music of a tinkling bell
    Is floating o'er the meadow's gentle sweep--
No discords mar the magic of the spell,
    And stealthily the twilight shadows creep.

And gently falls upon the listening ear--
    Like tones from voices of the long-ago--
The cadence of the murmuring waters near--
    With rhythmic ripplings soft and low.

Now grow apace the shadows' slanting shapes
    And fade the rugged hills to misty gray,
As dying day its calm departure takes
    And yields to coming night her sable sway.

The vaulted dome above now glows afar
    With man...

George W. Doneghy

Alone

The noon's greygolden meshes make
All night a veil,
The shorelamps in the sleeping lake
Laburnum tendrils trail.

The sly reeds whisper to the night
A name, her name,
And all my soul is a delight,
A swoon of shame.

James Joyce

My Love Is In A Light Attire

My love is in a light attire
Among the apple-trees,
Where the gay winds do most desire
To run in companies.

There, where the gay winds stay to woo
The young leaves as they pass,
My love goes slowly, bending to
Her shadow on the grass;

And where the skys a pale blue cup
Over the laughing land,
My love goes lightly, holding up
Her dress with dainty hand.

James Joyce

Variation Of The Song Of The Moon.

As a violet's gentle eye
Gazes on the azure sky
Until its hue grows like what it beholds;
As a gray and empty mist
Lies like solid amethyst
Over the western mountain it enfolds,
When the sunset sleeps
Upon its snow;
As a strain of sweetest sound
Wraps itself the wind around
Until the voiceless wind be music too;
As aught dark, vain, and dull,
Basking in what is beautiful,
Is full of light and love -

Percy Bysshe Shelley