Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DAWN, by PERCY STICKNEY GRANT



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DAWN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Why should I not praise the dawn?
Last Line: And match the sun's unflinching march of light.
Subject(s): Dawn; Sunrise


Why should I not praise the dawn?
Did Vedic poets and Greek poets
Alone know its might?
I, too, have seen the dawn from India's mountains;
Flames kindled on snowy peaks,
Lone summits contagious of fire.
The swift leap of the sun downward
From summit to summit.
Across black, untrod abysses

I, too, have seen the sun rise on Greek Islands,
Where again walked immortal beauty,
Gods and goddesses
In the rosy fingered dawn.

O God, let me, too, glorify life.
Why should I not praise what daily can give joy?
Nothing exacting such joy from man
Except his wedding day.
But here for all, for life is the sun,
After the silence and shadow of night,
Creeping quietly forward,
With delicate tints, expanding and brightening.

Over the ocean comes from the east
The crimson dawn, vital as blood,
While the trees stand inert, indistinct,
Waiting to be told of new life.
Playfully letting them sleep as it speeds
On beyond them, quickening, then resting.
Rolling from the east like the hopes of man,
Waked each day to new aspiration.

How the pine trees on the eastern hill
Stand out against red and gold!
How bright and colored the mountain top,
While still its base is dark and cold!
How the water in the bay is dyed in many tints!

I know your secret, O gorgeous east.
I know your hope, O waiting earth.
That man should grow richer and stronger each day,
Matching your godlike strides,
Ruddy with health, full of gifts,
Always speeding onward, never turning backward,
Always intensely vivifying -- always shining with brightness.

That man should break free from his cell;
His prison-house, his death-house,
His fears, discouragements, silences, penances, prostrations.
Not creep, bent double, with the weight of inflicted toil;
But breathe the heaven of earth's daily birth,
And match the sun's unflinching march of light.





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