| |
| UNDER the arches of the morning sky, | |
| Save in one heart, there beats no life of man; | |
| The yellow sand-hills bleak and trackless lie, | |
| And far behind them sleeps the caravan. | |
| A silence, as before creation, broods | 5 |
| Sublimely o’er the desert solitudes. | |
| |
| A silence as if God in heaven were still, | |
| And meditating some new wonder! Earth | |
| And Air the solemn portent own, and thrill | |
| With awful prescience of the coming birth. | 10 |
| And Night withdraws, and on their silver cars | |
| Wheel to remotest space the trembling Stars. | |
| |
| See! an increasing brightness, broad and fleet, | |
| Breaks on the morning in a rosy flood, | |
| As if He smiled to see his work complete, | 15 |
| And rested from it, and pronounced it good. | |
| The sands lie still, and every wind is furled: | |
| The Sun comes up, and looks upon the world. | |
| |
| Is there no burst of music to proclaim | |
| The pomp and majesty of this new lord? | 20 |
| A golden trumpet in each beam of flame, | |
| Startling the universe with grand accord? | |
| Must Earth be dumb beneath the splendors thrown | |
| From his full orb to glorify her own? | |
| |
| No: with an answering splendor, more than sound | 25 |
| Instinct with gratulation, she adores. | |
| With purple flame the porphyry hills are crowned, | |
| And burn with gold the Desert’s boundless floors; | |
| And the lone Man compels his haughty knee, | |
| And, prostrate at thy footstool, worships thee. | 30 |
| |
| Before the dreadful glory of thy face | |
| He veils his sight; he fears the fiery rod | |
| Which thou dost wield amid the brightening space, | |
| As if the sceptre of a visible god. | |
| If not the shadow of God’s lustre, thou | 35 |
| Art the one jewel flaming on his brow. | |
| |
| Wrap me within the mantle of thy beams, | |
| And feed my pulses with thy keenest fire! | |
| Here, where thy full meridian deluge streams | |
| Across the desert, let my blood aspire | 40 |
| To ripen in the vigor of thy blaze, | |
| And catch a warmth to shine through darker days! | |
| |
| I am alone before thee: Lord of Light! | |
| Begetter of the life of things that live! | |
| Beget in me thy calm, self-balanced might; | 45 |
| To me thine own immortal ardor give. | |
| Yea, though, like her who gave to Jove her charms, | |
| My being wither in thy fiery arms. | |
| |
| Whence came thy splendors? Heaven is filled with thee; | |
| The sky’s blue walls are dazzling with thy train; | 50 |
| Thou sitt’st alone in the Immensity, | |
| And in thy lap the World grows young again. | |
| Bathed in such brightness, drunken with the day, | |
| He deems the Dark forever passed away. | |
| |
| But thou dost sheathe thy trenchant sword, and lean | 55 |
| With tempered grandeur towards the western gate; | |
| Shedding thy glory with a brow serene, | |
| And leaving heaven all golden with thy state: | |
| Not as a king discrowned and overthrown, | |
| But one who keeps, and shall reclaim his own. | 60 |
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