The charm dissolves apace,
And as the morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reason.
And out of darkness came the hands
That reach thro' nature, moulding men.
DAY
Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!
Look to this Day! For it is Life,
The very Life of Life.
In its brief course lie all the Varieties
And Realities of your Existence;
The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty;
For Yesterday is but a Dream,
And Tomorrow is only a Vision;
But Today well lived
Makes every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,
And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.
Look well therefore to this Day!
Such is the Salutation of the Dawn.
Day is a snow-white Dove of heaven
That from the East glad message brings.
Virtus sui gloria.
Think that day lost whose (low) descending sun
Views from thy hand no noble action done.
From fibers of pain and hope and trouble
And toil and happiness,—one by one,—
Twisted together, or single or double,
The varying thread of our life is spun.
Hope shall cheer though the chain be galling;
Light shall come though the gloom be falling;
Faith will list for the Master calling
Our hearts to his rest,—when the day is done.
Yet, behind the night,
Waits for the great unborn, somewhere afar,
Some white tremendous daybreak.
Day!
Faster and more fast,
O'er night's brim, day boils at last;
Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim.
So here hath been dawning
Another blue day;
Think, wilt thou let it
Slip useless away?
Out of eternity
This new day is born,
Into eternity
At night will return.
Dies me, dies ilia!
Solvet Sæclum in favilla,
Teste David cum Sybilla.
Day of wrath that day of burning,
Seer and Sibyl speak concerning,.
All the world to ashes turning.
Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day,
Live till to—morrow, will have pass’d away.
Days, that need borrow
No part of their good morrow
From a fore-spent night of sorrow.
Daughters of Time, the hypocrite Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands;
To each they offer gifts after his will,
Bread, kingdom, stars, and sky that holds them all;
I, in my pleachéd garden watched the pomp
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
Turned and departed silent. I too late
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.
The days are ever divine as to the first Aryans.
They are of the least pretension, and of the
greatest capacity _of anything that exists.
They come and go like muffled and veiled figures
sent a distant friendly party; but they say
nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring,
they carry them as silently away.
