Rosa Newmarch (1857-1940). Songs to a Singer, and Other Verses (1906). III. Prelude to Day. Alfred H. Miles, ed. 1907. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

Songs to a Singer, and Other Verses (1906)
III. Prelude to Day

By Rosa Newmarch (1857–1940)


THE VIOLINS had stirred with hopes that died,
Like winds too weak to usher in the morn,
While to the dark-toned basses still replied
The sad, uncertain echo of the horn.

The impending mass of music seemed to brood	5
Inert and torpid, as nocturnal earth
Waits pulseless in the vague disquietude
Of that last hour which shrouds the daylight’s birth.

Until the blare of trumpets came to break
And splinter darkness into scarlet bars;	10
Then flute-scales, as from thrushes half-awake,
And harp-chords like the farewell sigh of stars.

But last of all the effulgence of your voice
Dawned, scattering all the lingering fears of night,
And bade my heart grow warm, my soul rejoice,	15
As though God said once more: let there be light.