‘Elysium’ by Adam Sedia

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Elysium

O golden hour, soft denouement of day,
O mystic time of quietude and peace,
When boughs and rushes whisper as they sway,
Twirled by the sighing zephyrs’ soft caprice;

When, fallen from his blinding noonday height,
The dimmed, declining sun, departing west,
Immerses all in glowing, golden light—
Warm relict of the noon’s blaze that oppressed.

When all the din and tumult day has stirred
Recedes to silence, hushed beneath the breeze,
And only owl and nightingale are heard
Calling out gently from the rustling trees;

You wearied soul, who now seek only rest
At daytime’s end, bask in the golden gleam,
The stillness, the mild airs, this world caressed
In light and languor, glimpsed as in a dream—

Your refuge, this imprint on earthly soil
Of fields beyond the sunset, ever green,
Where blessed spirits know no care nor toil,
Eternally at peace in such a scene.

But this, its mortal counterpart, flies back
Beyond the skies, now leaving them to turn
To evening’s pink, then twilight’s blue, then black
Of night, whose distant lights but faintly burn.

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Adam Sedia (b. 1984) lives in his native Northwest Indiana and practices law as a civil and appellate litigator. In addition to the Society’s publications, his poems and prose works have appeared in The Chained Muse Review, Indiana Voice Journal, and other literary journals. He is also a composer, and his musical works may be heard on his YouTube channel.