University of Virginia Library

“THE DAY BEGAN AS OTHER DAYS BEGIN”

The day began as other days begin,
The round of work, the implacable city's din;
The New World's Babel, louder with each hour.
Then in a by-way,—a still, secret bower,—
A temple given to silence and to books;
And in its heart a sacred nook of nooks.
There, in the silence, from a priceless store
Of written tomes, a guardian of their lore
A manuscript uplifted to my view,
With reverent, loving hands—and then withdrew.

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Opening the book my gaze fell on that line
Wherein the marvelous poet, the divine
Singer of Endymion, his deathless song
Began, and so beginning made immortal.
O dead, undying bard! now all the wrong
Fate did thee rose; through Memory's drapèd portal
Trooped, in wan figures, all thy tragic story—
But mightier still the wonder and the glory
Of that white page whereon thy soul was poured.
Then with thy spirit my spirit likewise soared;
Something immortal entered in this breast
Miraculously; and like one confessed
And throughly shriven, back to the world I turned
While a new heart within me flamed and burned.