MORNING
Along the east, where late the dark impended,
A dusky gleam is born:
The watches of the night are ended,
And heaven foretells the morn!
The hills of home, no longer hurled together,
In one wide blotch of night,
Lift up their heads through misty ether,
Distinct in rising light.
Then, after pangs of darkness slowly dying,
O'er the delivered world
Comes Morn, with every banner flying
And every sail unfurled!
So long the night, so chill, so blank and dreary,
I thought the sun was dead;
But yonder burn his beacons cheery
On peaks of cloudy red:
And yonder fly his scattered golden arrows,
And smite the hills with day,
While Night her vain dominion narrows
And westward wheels away.
A sweeter air revives the new creation,
The dews are tears of bliss,
And Earth, in amorous palpitation,
Receives her bridegroom's kiss.
Bathed in the morning, let my heart surrender
The doubts that darkness gave,
And rise to meet the advancing splendor—
O Night! no more thy slave.
I breathe at last, thy gloomy reign forgetting,
Thy weary watches done,
Thy last pale star behind me setting,
The freedom of the sun!
1860.
