Mundi et Cordis :: :: University of Virginia Library

I break upon the skylark's starry sleep:
Lo! up to the unclouded vault he springs,
As a quick thought into the brain doth leap,
And to the cresting star of morning sings
A faint and trembling song; again descending,
And with the interrupted silence blending.
The pale Dawn dreams amid the broken shadows
Of sky and air, of ocean, cliffs and meadows,
Like love, with eyes half-ope, through scatter'd hair;
The morning star swings high its silver lamp
O'er the white portal of the ethereal east;
And beaming upon Vesper, dim and damp
In the pale purple of the western air,
Lights her to sleep in the o'ercurtain'd night,
Fast fading from the banner of the morning
In the advancing van of its adorning.
The fixed star-spheres, from their watch released,
Retire within a veil of blinding light;
And, riding on Aurora's opening lid,
Seem but dream-tears within its lashes hid.

As the morn wakes upon her starlight pillow,
The moonbeam pales upon the tranquil billow,
And, like a radiant ghost, slow dies away
In the grey splendour of the kindling day.
In a dim vapour, on the horizon's verge,
Now setteth Hesper faint and weepingly;
And from the caves of night a murky surge,
Advancing to the forehead of the sky,
Enfolds in heaving clouds the day-star clear;
And the cleft orb of the way-weary moon
And one far pilgrim planet's failing sphere
Alone in the dissolving ether swoon.