Littell's Living Age/Volume 169/Issue 2181/Sunrise

by Evelyn Pyne

Lord, in the clear white starlight how they gleam
     Those myriad crosses thou hast set to be
     Guide posts and guardians for the heart of me,
That quails, and cowers, as some faint moonbeam
Lightens their pallid faces, till they seem
     Frowning and fierce! O Lord look piteously
     From thy far heaven as once from Calvary,
On me who struggle thro’ life’s anguished dream!

Sudden the starlight waneth wan, and dead,
     The moon a blown rose-petal, faint and white;
And, lo! the dawn with fair gold flowers and red
     Hath filled the empty skies, and one bedight
With sunshine for a garment, standeth nigh,
"Child, where mine hand sets crosses there am I!"