A pioneer's or a poet prayer

A pioneer woman from the Kansas frontier remembers: "Oh the sunset - see - the sunset! someone would acclaim and its sudden glory sweeping through the kindled cloud portals seemed a visible affirmation of all that had moved our hearts and imaginations this day concerning the things of the Unseen."

Across the ocean, again late 19th century, William Wadsworth Longfellow adds his take on dusk.

"The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight. ...

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.