Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/Sunrise

Sunrise.

Night hurrying sails away across the waters,  To seek repose in her own distant isles,And slow retire the moon's all-radiant daughters,  But young Aurora lingers with her smiles,From the deep dell and dark grove's heaving breast,  The misty forms that nightly slumber there,Ascending to the mountain's snowy crest,  Expand their wings, and part into the air;  And forth from out the eastern hall,  Gilding Nature's sable pall,  The lovely light descends to deck  With dewy pearls young Morning's neck.  The lark is up in the dewy sheen;—  Oh, the little saint, with harp unseen,  Is trilling a hymn on her skyèd tower,  Whose cherub tones and airy power  Hold the ear of heav'n, that listens above  In trembling trance of silent love.  The zephyrs pass by on their downy wings,  With harps, from whose Æolian strings  A requiem quivers adown the valeTo the moon there sitting, all sad and pale.  And o'er yon eastern fields of blue  Tall filmy shapes of amber hue  Wave their bright robes around the car  Of the slow retiring Morning Star.  Sweet looks the infant day above  Like the rich and rosy smile of love.