Crescent Moon at Sunset

Today again has been hot and cloudless. The evening faded into dust with not a cloud in sight. With the sky changing from salmon orange to cobalt blue.
To the south west and about thirty degrees above the horizon was a beautiful waxing crescent moon and just touching the trees to the west. Venus the Goddess of Love was sinking slowly down on to the distant cloudless Horizon.
A perfect end to a otherwise hot, sunny day!

Sunset

THE river sleeps beneath the sky,
And clasps the shadows to its breast;
The crescent moon shines dim on high;
And in the lately radiant west
The gold is fading into gray.
Now stills the lark his festive lay,
And mourns with me the dying day.
While in the south the first faint star
Lifts to the night its silver face,
And twinkles to the moon afar
Across the heaven's graying space,
Low murmurs reach me from the town,
As Day puts on her sombre crown,
And shakes her mantle darkly down.

Paul Laurence Dun