Flower o' the thorn :: :: University of Virginia Library

I WAKEN in the flush of dawn.
The feast of darkness done and gone,
With all the age-accustomed state,
The halcyon heavens celebrate.
Already, see, the uncertain hue,
As nacre fumed, of daybreak new
Unto a rosy flush gives place;
And that, in turn, from Heaven's face,
Slow-paling, fades and bares to view
A virgin bell of wind-washed blue,
The wede of peace and pureness worn
Of new-renascent summer morn.

Light waxes with each waxing breath.
As for Life's victory over Death,
June o'er the sleeping town unfurls
Its oriflamme of gold and pearls.
The sun is out of bed at four
And issuing from the Orient door,
Beams, in the tender-coloured sky,
His blandliest for such as I,
Who lovers born and bonded are,
Beneath some solitary star,
The ways to wander, where and when
They uninfested are of men.
Full at my window in he looks
And grapples me with golden hooks,

As who should bid me, “Lover mine,
Come out and quaff my wonder-wine,
Before Day's dull and tedious tale
Its early morning freshness stale.
Up! Up!” He laughs; for well, him nay,
The glad rogue knows, I cannot say.
So up and forth I go and fare
With him alone the morning air.

Still all about the folk sleep sound;
The streets are consecrated ground,
Sacred to silence, nothing heard,
Except some half-awakened bird,
That stammers out, as best he may,
His drowsy matins to the Day.
In all the world, save bird and sun
And me, meseems, astir is none.

A new world rises, as I go,
Around me in the morning-glow,
A world of purity and peace,
Of dearth unrecking or increase.
The city, in the lustral fires
Of dawning purged of void desires
And purified of strife in vain,
Soars up, a many-steepled fane,
A vast unworded voice of prayer,
Ascending through the stainless air.

Nay, what is come of London's grime?
But yesterday, at eventime,
The flocking ways were all aflood
With cataracts of crass and mud.
Yet now all purged they are of mire:

The grizzled walls to Heaven aspire,
Clean, innocent and glorified,
Transfigured of the hallowtide.
The streets unsullied show; each stone,
It seems to me, is precious grown:
There's nothing common or unclean
Beneath the stainless Morning seen.

Soon from the stony wastes of street
On street by my accustomed feet
I'm borne to where the lonelier ways
Go winding, wandering through a maze
Of thronging trees, all full in leaf,
The firstlings of the Summer's sheaf,
And all the houses nest in bowers
Of shrubs and creepers, grass and flowers.
There, too, all sleep; and I, I fare,
Still steeping in the reverend air
My ravished soul, my lonely mood
Rejoicing in the solitude
And the sweet hour, now fitting words
To the wild ditty of the birds,
That, sheltered from th'undistant crowd,
As in the woods and fields sing loud,
Now pausing by the way to pat
And barter greetings with some cat,
That, on wall-top or window-place
High-perched, sits washing of her face:
For cats, like poets, all above,
The wild free life of Nature love
And lonesome liberty withal,
And oftentimes, at Morning's call,
When all with early dew is wet,
What while the duller dog is yet

Asleep and snoring, hill and lawn
Beseek, to wait upon the dawn.

What benison is in the breeze!
With what an ecstasy the trees
Sway to its wafts, as tow'rd the sky,
That bends on them its soft blue eye
In benediction, they aspire
And to the rhythm of the choir
Stir of the feathered hosts that hymn
The morning's victory o'er the dim
Dead Night and Day newborn and mild
And guileless as a little child!

Wandering I go, content to be
In unison with bird and tree,
To have no soul, no thoughts but share
With grass and flowers and skies and air,
To be, beneath the assaining sun,
With universal Nature one.

How holy is the Morning's mood!
How steeped in sacred solitude!
Who is't can think of worldly things,
When in the lift the laverock sings,
Who but must cast his cares and pains,
When in the heavens the dayspring reigns,
When the thrush carols loud and free
And the finch flutes in hedge and tree,
When earth anew, beneath the dawn,
Is born and safe from sight withdrawn,
The blackbird on the leafing limes
His rapt “O Salutaris!” rhymes?

Joying I go, not only glad,
But that I ever have been sad
Forgetting and with heart a-brim
For solace, hearken to the hymn
Of many-mingling prayer and praise,
That rises from the leafy ways.
Nay, to these voices listening,
That to my soul a rapture bring
Of peace and purity contrite,
Feel, as I fare, my soul washed white
In lustral tides of morning light
And mundified of mortal fret,
Of sin and sorrow and regret:
And oft, where, through some breach of green,
The stainless scope of Heaven is seen,
I stand and drink with dreaming eyes
The benediction of the skies.

Why cannot life lapse ever thus?
Why should intrusive noontide truss
Dawn's dewy skirts for toil and play
And with the besom of the Day
The forenoon freshness brush away,
The rainbow-coloured down that clings
But to the waking Morning's wings?
Myself, this season most of price
Who tender, life in Paradise,
For Eve and Adam, must, I ween,
Have one eternal Morning been,
Where the sweet promise of new birth
Still hovered o'er the happy earth,
Nor, by performance overfilled,
Its trembling cup to waste was spilled,
Where trinketed with dew the flowers

Still were, nor, with the waxing hours
Tyrannic, glade and garth and pool
Their virgin veils, pellucid, cool,
Of shade before the brazen shoon
Must doff of overbearing noon.

But, see, the world begins to wake;
And hearken, yonder, voices break
The sacred silence. 'Tis the hum
Of those to early toil that come.
The houses open, one by one,
Their shuttered eyes, that greet the sun
With blinking panes, and men begin
To stir again, without, within:
The round of yet another day
Of weariness is on the way.

Not one am I that hate my kind;
But in my heart and in my mind,
Unknown to all, I have a shrine
Of adoration, o'er divine
To share with any of my kin.
None may admittance have therein,
None be partakers in my hours
Of worship, save the trees and flowers,
The sun that shines, the bird that sings
And all the innocent fair things
That speak to me with Nature's voice.
With them I sorrow and rejoice;
With them I worship and I love

The True, the Fair; and all above,
I cherish sacred Solitude.

So, on my secret hopes abrood,
I cannot walk the world, beside
My fellows, in the morning-tide.
Enough it is with them to fare
The common ways of toil and care:
But this my pause of peace and thought,
Of benison so dearly bought,
This morning moment of relief
From stress, this season all too brief,
For quiet contemplation set
Between Night's darkness and Day's fret,
This sacred hour, with Nature when
I'm one, I cannot share with men.

And so, when, with the waxing day,
The forenoon freshness fades away
And men about the streets again
Go binding on the burden vain
Of toil, I to my dream of blue
And blissfulness must bid adieu
And to take up the daily load
Of Life address me, by the road
Oft turning back, to wave the hand
Of wistful greeting to the land
Of love and benison and balm,
The Country of the Morning-Calm.