Good Night + 

The skylarks are far behind that sang over the down; + 

I can hear no more those suburb nightingales; + 

Thrushes and blackbirds sing in the gardens of the town + 

In vain: the noise of man, beast, and machine prevails. + 

But the call of children in the unfamiliar streets + 

That echo with a familiar twilight echoing, + 

Sweet as the voice of nightingale or lark, completes + 

A magic of strange welcome, so that I seem a king + 

Among man, beast, machine, bird, child, and the ghost + 

That in the echo lives and with the echo dies. + 

The friendless town is friendly; homeless, I not lost; + 

Though I know none of these doors, and meet but strangers’ eyes. + 

Never again, perhaps, after to-morrow, shall + 

I see these homely streets, these church windows alight, + 

Not a man or woman or child among them all: + 

But it is All Friends’ Night, a traveller’s good night. + 