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| 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, | 5 |
| 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. | 10 |
| |
| O changeless guardians! O ye wizard first! | |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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 | 20 |
| 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. | 25 |
| 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, | 30 |
| 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. | 35 |
| And rounding all, springs one full, ambient arch, | |
| One great good limpid world—so still, so still! | |
| For no sound echoes from its crystal curve | |
| Save four clear notes, the song of that lone bird | |
| Who, brave but trembling, tries his morning hymn, | 40 |
| And has no heart to finish, for the awe | |
| And wonder of this pearling globe of dawn. | |
| |
| Light, light eternal! veiling-place of stars! | |
| Light, the revealer of dread beauty’s face! | |
| Weaving whereof the hills are lambent clad! | 45 |
| Mighty libation to the Unknown God! | |
| Cup whereat pine-trees slake their giant thirst | |
| And little leaves drink sweet delirium! | |
| Being and breath and potion! living soul | |
| And all-informing heart of all that lives! | 50 |
| How can we magnify thine awful name | |
| Save by its chanting: Light! and Light! and Light! | |
| An exhalation from far sky retreats, | |
| It grows in silence, as ’twere self-create, | |
| Suffusing all the dusky web of night. | 55 |
| But one lone corner it invades not yet, | |
| Where low above a black and rimy crag | |
| Hangs the old moon, thin as a battered shield, | |
| The holy, useless shield of long-past wars, | |
| Dinted and frosty, on the crystal dark. | 60 |
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| But lo! the east,—let none forget the east, | |
| Pathway ordained of old where He should tread. | |
| Through some sweet magic common in the skies, | |
| The rosy banners are with saffron tinct; | |
| The saffron grows to gold, the gold is fire, | 65 |
| And led by silence more majestical | |
| Than clash of conquering arms, He comes! He comes! | |
| He holds His spear benignant, sceptrewise, | |
| And strikes out flame from the adoring hills. | |
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