Carol and Cadence :: :: University of Virginia Library

How is the morning perished from its pride!
In the green freshness of the growing day,
Before the undaunted thought the world spread wide
And sea with sky blent in one golden tide,
Billowing toward the dream-realms far away,
Whereas the adventurous soul upon the quest
Might launch of all the lovelands of the West
And look to sight the Islands of the Blest.

This morning how Life gloried, when, to fend
The demons of the dark from earth away,
It felt the angel of the dawn descend
And the faint breeze foresaid the shadows' end,
When of a sudden dusk gave place to day
And morning flowered on the front of night,
As glad and glorious and blue and bright
As when, at God's command, there first was light.

But now desire is dead with morning gone.
Beneath the burden of the noontide star,
Narcotic, overlapping hill and lawn,
Earth hath forgot the freshness of the dawn;
Thought yearns no longer for the fair and far
And Life, in dreams lethargic buried deep,
No care hath, saving in the sun to steep,
No will, no wish, except it be for sleep.

Now out upon the oaf who longed to find
A land where it is always afternoon,
Who would the forenoon-freshness ban and bind
In midday's sullen chains the flowerful wind
Of waking day! Were't mine to buy the boon,
A land where it is morning still for me,
Where ever new there is to do and be,
New birds, new blooms, new light on land and sea.