(p. 14)

 

3.

 

A SONG OF THE DAWNING IN SUMMER

 

            NOW down the watery heavens the timid moon

            Flies the awakening light, the soaring lark

            Calls up the day; the woods responsive bend

            Beneath the kindling breeze, the laughing rill

            Through the still meadow chants its morning song;

            And from the glowing palace of the sun

            The golden-haired Aurora leads her train

            Of blushing nymphs, –– the fair immortal Hours,

            With laughter-loving eyes, and sunny smiles

            Cheering the pleasant land.

                                                           Sweet love, awake!

            Awake, my princess! let us be away

            Into the open cornfields where the lark,

            Poised in the pure all-present light of heaven,

            Sings evermore of love, and strange delights,

            Of happy wanderings on sunny hills,

            And of sweet wondrous visions that arise

            Out of the misty distance.

The broad earth

(p. 15)

            Her thousand voices wakes, and thousand eyes

            Plash in the joyous light, and sunbeams kiss

            Each other’s image in a thousand drops

            Of tiny tremulous dew. O new-born day!

            Life-giving light! how very fair art thou,

            How beautiful and radiant! but my love

            Is queenlier life and sweeter day to me.

            For on the open meadows of my heart

            Such sweet and plenteous showers of love have fallen,

            That every many-coloured thought and wish

            And blossoming hope, that flowers in my soul,

            Gleams with a thousand bright and glistering drops,

            Each in itself a mirror, wherein thou,

            My glorious sun! my heaven! my daylight! art

            A thousand times reflected and renewed!

 

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