IN the darkness before dawn When dews make gray the field And the world is trance-withdrawn And trees but half revealed, O then, high up, above the topmost lawn, What fountains are unsealed! Scarce can the eye see light When the ear becomes aware That instruments exquisite Are raining from the air, While sun and pale moon mingle their delight, Adorations everywhere! Who are these solemnizing In song-mists crystalline Between the sun's uprising And the sheened moon's decline Glories so far above our poor devising Unseen before the shrine? Whose are these rainbow-hued Symphonies high and higher Wafted in multitude Of choir outclimbing choir, As though the heavens were some deep-tangled wood And each leaf voice and fire? Hark! it grows less and less, That rapture nothing mars; They rise beyond our guess Beyond our senses' bars, They drink the virgin Light, the measureless, And in it fade like stars. Earth sends them up from hills -- Her winged wishes, they! Wild hopes, that nothing kills, To outsoar the young Day, To shake off all that chains the soul and chills In one immortal ray! They ascend ere the first beam On dark heaven waxes strong To dwell in that blue stream Of Dawn, and float along -- The zenith and the future all their dream -- And the world's roofed with song! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SATAN ABSOLVED; A VICTORIAN MYSTERY by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT OLD AND YOUNG by FRANCIS WILLIAM BOURDILLON THE LADY TO HER GUITAR by EMILY JANE BRONTE THE MOURNING MOTHER by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 2. THESE WAVES OF YOUR GREAT HEART by EDWARD CARPENTER |