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I
I AM the spirit of the morning sea; | |
| I am the awakening and the glad surprise; | |
| I fill the skies | |
| With laughter and with light. | |
| Not tears, but jollity | 5 |
| At birth of day brim the strong man-child’s eyes. | |
| Behold the white | |
| Wide three-fold beams that from the hidden sun | |
| Rise swift and far,— | |
| One where Orion keeps | 10 |
| His armëd watch, and one | |
| That to the midmost starry heaven upleaps; | |
| The third blots out the firm-fixed Northern Star. | |
| I am the wind that shakes the glittering wave, | |
| Hurries the snowy spume along the shore | 15 |
| And dies at last in some far-murmuring cave. | |
| My voice thou hearest in the breaker’s roar— | |
| That sound which never failed since time began, | |
| And first around the world the shining tumult ran. | |
| |
II
I light the sea and wake the sleeping land. | 20 |
| My footsteps on the hills make music, and my hand | |
| Plays like a harper’s on the wind-swept pines. | |
| With the wind and the day | |
| I follow round the world—away! away! | |
| Wide over lake and plain my sunlight shines | 25 |
| And every wave and every blade of grass | |
| Doth know me as I pass; | |
| And me the western sloping mountains know, and me | |
| The far-off, golden sea. | |
| |
| O sea, whereon the passing sun doth lie! | 30 |
| O man, who watchest by that golden sea! | |
| Grieve not,—O grieve not thou, but lift thine eye | |
| And see me glorious in the sunset sky! | |
| |
III
I love not the night | |
| Save when the stars are bright, | 35 |
| Or when the moon | |
| Fills the white air with silence like a tune. | |
| Yea, even the night is mine | |
| When the Northern Lights outshine, | |
| And all the wild heavens throb in ecstasy divine;— | 40 |
| Yea, mine deep midnight, though the black sky lowers, | |
| When the sea burns white and breaks on the shore in starry showers. | |
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IV
I am the laughter of the new-born child | |
| On whose soft-breathing sleep an angel smiled. | |
| And I all sweet first things that are: | 45 |
| First songs of birds, not perfect as at last,— | |
| Broken and incomplete,— | |
| But sweet, oh, sweet! | |
| And I the first faint glimmer of a star | |
| To the wrecked ship that tells the storm is past; | 50 |
| The first keen smells and stirrings of the Spring; | |
| First snow-flakes, and first May-flowers after snow; | |
| The silver glow | |
| Of the new moon’s ethereal ring; | |
| The song the morning stars together made, | 55 |
| And the first kiss of lovers under the first June shade. | |
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V
My sword is quick, my arm is strong to smite | |
| In the dread joy and fury of the fight. | |
| I am with those who win, not those who fly; | |
| With those who live I am, not those who die. | 60 |
| Who die? Nay, nay, that word | |
| Where I am is unheard; | |
| For I am the spirit of youth that cannot change, | |
| Nor cease, nor suffer woe; | |
| And I am the spirit of beauty that doth range | 65 |
| Through natural forms and motions, and each show | |
| Of outward loveliness. With me have birth | |
| All gentleness and joy in all the earth. | |
| Raphael knew me, and showed the world my face; | |
| Me Homer knew, and all the singing race,— | 70 |
| For I am the spirit of light, and life, and mirth. | |
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