The Home Book of Verse, vol 3 | Page 8

Content, as of hunger appeased and stayed; In the heavens a silence that seems not mere privation of sound, But a thing with form and body, a thing to be touched and weighed! Yet I know that I dwell in the midst of the roar of the cosmic wheel, In the hot collision of Forces, and clangor of boundless Strife, Mid the sound of the speed of the worlds, the rushing worlds, and the peal Of the thunder of Life.
William Watson [1858-1935]
THE MIRACLE OF THE DAWN
What would it mean for you and me If dawn should come no more! Think of its gold along the sea, Its rose above the shore! That rose of awful mystery, Our souls bow down before.
What wonder that the Inca kneeled, The Aztec prayed and pled And sacrificed to it, and sealed, - With rites that long are dead, - The marvels that it once revealed To them it comforted.
What wonder, yea! what awe, behold! What rapture and what tears Were ours, if wild its rivered gold, - That now each day appears, - Burst on the world, in darkness rolled, Once every thousand years!
Think what it means to me and you To see it even as God Evolved it when the world was new! When Light rose, earthquake-shod, And slow its gradual splendor grew O'er deeps the whirlwind trod.
What shoutings then and cymballings Arose from depth and height! What worship-solemn trumpetings, And thunders, burning-white, Of winds and waves, and anthemings Of Earth received the Light.
Think what it meant to see the dawn! The dawn, that comes each day! - What if the East should ne'er grow wan, Should nevermore grow gray! That line of rose no more be drawn Above the ocean's spray!
Madison Cawein [1865-1914]
DAWN-ANGELS
All night I watched awake for morning, At last the East grew all a flame, The birds for welcome sang, or warning, And with their singing morning came.
Along the gold-green heavens drifted Pale wandering souls that shun the light, Whose cloudy pinions, torn and rifted, Had beat the bars of Heaven all night.
These clustered round the moon, but higher A troop of shining spirits went, Who were not made of wind or fire, But some divine dream-element.
Some held the Light, while those remaining Shook out their harvest-colored wings, A faint unusual music raining, (Whose sound was Light) on earthly things.
They sang, and as a mighty river Their voices washed the night away, From East to West ran one white shiver, And waxen strong their song was Day.
A. Mary F. Robinson [1857-
MUSIC OF THE DAWN At Sea, October 23, 1907
In far forests' leafy twilight, now is stealing gray dawn's shy light, And the misty air is tremulous with songs of many a bird; While from mountain steeps descending, every streamlet's voice is blending With the anthems of great pine trees, by the breath of daylight stirred.
But I turn from Fancy's dreaming of the green earth, to the gleaming Of the fluttering wings of morning rushing o'er the jewelled deep; And the ocean's rhythmic pounding, with each lucent wave resounding, Seems the music made when God's own hands His mighty harpstrings sweep.
Virginia Bioren Harrison [1847-
SUNRISE ON MANSFIELD MOUNTAIN
O swift forerunners, rosy with the race! Spirits of dawn, divinely manifest Behind your blushing banners in the sky, Daring invaders of Night's tenting-ground, - How do ye strain on forward-bending foot, Each to be first in heralding of joy! With silence sandalled, so they weave their way, And so they stand, with silence panoplied, Chanting, through mystic symbollings of flame, Their solemn invocation to the light.
O changeless guardians! O ye wizard firs! What strenuous philter feeds your potency, That thus ye rest, in sweet wood-hardiness. Ready to learn of all and utter naught? What breath may move ye, or what breeze invite To odorous hot lendings of the heart? What wind - but all the winds are yet afar, And e'en the little tricksy zephyr sprites, That fleet before them, like their elfin locks, Have lagged in sleep, nor stir nor waken yet To pluck the robe of patient majesty.
Too still for dreaming, too divine for sleep, So range the firs, the constant, fearless ones. Warders of mountain secrets, there they wait, Each with his cloak about him, breathless, calm, And yet expectant, as who knows the dawn, And all night thrills with memory and desire, Searching in what has been for what shall be: The marvel of the ne'er familiar day, Sacred investiture of life renewed, The chrism of dew, the coronal of flame.
Low in the valley lies the conquered rout Of man's poor trivial turmoil, lost and drowned Under the mist, in gleaming rivers rolled, Where oozy marsh contends with frothing main. And rounding all, springs one full, ambient arch, One great good limpid world - so still, so still! For no