Volume Iii Part 3 (2/2)
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 G.o.d 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 wors.h.i.+p-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 cl.u.s.tered round the moon, but higher A troop of s.h.i.+ning 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 s.h.i.+ver, 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 rus.h.i.+ng o'er the jewelled deep; And the ocean's rhythmic pounding, with each lucent wave resounding, Seems the music made when G.o.d's own hands His mighty harpstrings sweep.
Virginia Bioren Harrison [1847-
SUNRISE ON MANSFIELD MOUNTAIN
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