Before Sunrise

 

A blush of salmon breathes along

The low, unwearied eastern night

And fades with light incipient.

Now stir some brother glints of gold

Alurk in dewy stars, and still

Amid the silken veils of night,

Which hang in wraiths of sleepiness

And lap the inner lands of mind

Through all the wide, the silent world.

 

Oh, look ! Some birds make seaward flight,

Go breasting swift and mightily,

And turn not backward to the land.

 

Oh, look ! Their wings beat up the dark,

And flash with fires invisible.

 

Oh, look ! Athwart the shrinking dome

Apollo streams his flaming hair

In horizontal waves of light,

Ethereal patterns of the day.

 

Arthur Wilson.