
“Whilst twilight's curtain spreading far,
Was pinned with a single star.”
Death in Disguise (Boston edition, 1833), line 227. A number of variants are reported:
While twilight's curtain gathering far
Is pinned with a single diamond star.
Now twilight lets her curtain down,
And pins it with a star.
Compare: "And drew my midnight curtain with fingers bloody red", Thomas Hood, Dream of Eugene Aram; "The moon is a silver pinhead vast, That holds the heavens tent-hangings fast", William R. Alger, "The Use of the Moon", Poetry of the Orient (1865), p. 178.