The Dawn

I walk the fields, now desolate, embalmed in ancient night,

And with me bear the shades and sounds of all that passes,

Dim and bright;


Beholding with a staid, sharp eye, the steady dark dismantled,

Accepted, and encircled, by the newly ordered light.


Rich vales lift up their flowers, soft-colored torches raised

To glory in the simple day,

And sleepy owls overlook, with yellow, dusky eyes

a dawn, whose timid glow, in soft embroidery surrounds

the pale and golden wood.


Fresh tubers, fronds, and rushes stir

To greet the slow, ascending sun;

Their milky frost dissolving, sipped, becomes

The dewy gauze of morning song,


While in myself, the same good stirring;

Fair beauty strikes a chord so bright, as to give censure or give rise

To forms and favors overcast by melancholy's cool respite.


All my senses, chill as bone, now are softened, safe, aroused;

These sinews, hardened by the frost, now are supple,

And bend before the throne.


Sweet loves revive the wearied breast,

To summon up with gentle breath,

This flushed, enamored skin;


Encircling all without,

And all within.