Poem: “A dusk was come” by Viktoria Vakser ’26

A dusk was come; the earth a sullen quiet
Had raised to protest Night’s impending gloom,
And pulled the tired land to noiseless riot,
Forestalling to the most the coming doom.
And animals, whose shadows claimed the night,
And glimpsèd were before they turned to naught,
Shrank from the chilling silence, and in fright,
Cried for the warmth the sun no longer wrought.
Then suddenly, this deathly silence shattered,
By chanting in a monastery near,
Brought all the dark, foreboding thoughts to tatters,
And filled the earth with singing sweet and clear.
The notes brought witness: man was not forsaken,
Though light be stripped from land, and earth be shaken.