Happy Birthday, Katherine

Today in Birmingham, England, in 1846, Katherine Harris Bradley was born. She wrote, along with her lover, Emma Ward Cooper, under the name of "Michael Field".

Nightfall

She sits beside: through four low panes of glass
The sun, a misty meadow, and the stream;
Falling through rounded elms the last sunbeam
Through night's thick fibre sudden barges pass
With great forelights of gold, with trailing mass
Of timber: rearward of their transient glearn
The shadows settle, and profounder dream
Enters, fulfils the shadows. Vale and grass
Are now no more; a last leaf strays about,
Then every wandering ceases; we remain.
Clear dusk, the face of wind is on the sky:
The eyes I love lift to the upper pane --
Their voice gives note of welcome quietly
'I love the air in which the stars come out.'