Evening Ritual

Charles Edward Eaton

The muscled boys wait on the hill,
Sun-bronzed and boisterous in their mood;
With youth bright-braided in the will,
They scoff at idle solitude.

They wait for girls to wander by,
Soft figures out of evening's ease,


With arms as languorous as the sky
And hips that sway like limber trees.

The lean and ruddy-natured boys
Enjoy their passing, one by one,
Grave and gradual in their poise
Like the slow setting of the sun.

As luminous round the hill they wind
And down the goat-path to the plains,
Their grace compels the rugged mind
And leaves a silence in the veins.