I have been looking at some of the landscape poetry of Algernon Charles Swinbourne (1837 – 1909). He was an outstanding English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. A complete rebel in Victorian England a fervent antitheist and pagan. A person who opposes any form of religion and someone who believes in the natural order of life.

The opening lines of Evening on the Broads

OVER two shadowless waters, adrift as a pinnace in peril,
     Hangs as in heavy suspense, charged with irresolute light,
Softly the soul of the sunset upholden awhile on the sterile
      Waves and wastes of the land, half repossessed by the night.
Inland glimmer the shallows asleep and afar in the breathless
      Twilight: yonder the depths darken afar and asleep.
Slowly the semblance of death out of heaven descends on the deathless
      Waters: hardly the light lives on the face of the deep —
Hardly, but here for awhile. All over the grey soft shallow
      Hover the colours and clouds of the twilight, void of a star.
As a bird unfledged is the broad-winged night, whose winglets are callow
      Yet, but soon with their plumes will she cover her brood from afar,
Cover the brood of her worlds that cumber the skies with their blossom
      Thick as the darkness of leaf-shadowed spring is encumbered with flowers.
World upon world is enwound in the bountiful girth of her bosom,
      Warm and lustrous with life lovely to look on as ours.
Still is the sunset adrift as a spirit in doubt that dissembles
      Still with itself, being sick of division and dimmed by dismay —
Nay, not so; but with love and delight beyond passion it trembles,
      Fearful and fain of the night, lovely with love of the day:
Fain and fearful of rest that is like unto death, and begotten
      Out of the womb of the tomb, born of the seed of the grave:
Lovely with shadows of loves that are only not wholly forgotten,
      Only not wholly suppressed by the dark as a wreck by the wave.
Still there linger the loves of the morning and noon, in a vision
      Blindly beheld, but in vain: ghosts that are tired, and would rest.
But the glories beloved of the night rise all too dense for division,
      Deep in the depth of her breast sheltered as doves in a nest.
Fainter the beams of the loves of the daylight season cnkindled
      Wane, and the memories of hours that were fair with the love of them fade:
Loftier, aloft of the lights of the sunset stricken and dwindled,
      Gather the signs of the love at the heart of the night new-made.
New-made night, new-born of the sunset, immeasurable, endless,
      Opens the secret of love hid from of old in her heart,
In the deep sweet heart full-charged with faultless love of the friendless
      Spirits of men that are eased when the wheels of the sun depart.
Still is the sunset afloat as a ship on the waters upholden
      Full-sailed, wide-winged, poised softly for ever asway —
Nay, not so, but at least for a little, awhile at the golden
      Limit of arching air fain for an hour to delay.
Here on the bar of the sand-bank, steep yet aslope to the gleaming
      Waste of the water without, waste of the water within,
Lights overhead and lights underneath seem doubtfully dreaming
       Whether the day be done, whether the night may begin.
Far and afar and farther again they falter and hover,
      Warm on the water and deep in the sky and pale on the cloud:
Colder again and slowly remoter, afraid to recover
      Breath, yet fain to revive, as it seems, from the skirt of the shroud.
Faintly the heartbeats shorten and pause of the light in the westward
      Heaven, as eastward quicken the paces of star upon star

The Broads are a network of mostly navigable rivers and lakes in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.

 The pinnace is a light boat, propelled by oars or sails.

It is a long poem that goes into great lengths to personify the Broads at the sunset hour. He associates the dark night-dying day alluding the loss of light to dying. He gives his own personal insights on death. He likens the taking of light to that of a bird unfledged that covers her brood from afar. The taking away of the world as approachng darkness dissembles. This implies a certain care implicit in nature.

World upon world is enwound in the bountiful girth of her bosom,
      Warm and lustrous with life lovely to look on as ours.

Alluding to a transience in death akin to the transience from daylight to night.

semblance of death out of the heavens descends on the deathless waters. Out of the womb of the tomb born of the seed of the grave.

The night is new made and opens the secret of love as in the lines.

New-made night, new-born of the sunset, immeasurable, endless,
      Opens the secret of love hid from of old in her heart,

The spirits of people live on in his lines, together with the love of the day.

Lovely with shadows of loves that are only not wholly forgotten,

I find these lines quite spiritual with an appreciation of inherent love that exists in nature along with recognition of the death-birth-cycle of ceaseless life. In the last four lines of the poem, he does actually mention God.

and the sunset at last and the twilight are dead: 
                                    and the darkness is breathless
With fear of the wind's breath rising that seems and seems not to sleep:
But a sense of the sound of it alway, a spirit unsleeping and deathless,
              Ghost or God, evermore moves on the face of the deep.

On a personal note, I have always found the atheist view as a hollow empty pessimistic stance. To my mind belief in a benevolent God supportive of all people gives hope for the future and purpose to life.