I miss you in the dawn, of gradual flowering lights
And prayer-pale stars that pass the drowsing-incensed hymns,
When early earth through all her greenly sleeping limbs
Puts on the exquisite gold day. The Christlike sun
Moves to his resurrection in rejoicing heights,
And priestly hills partake of morning one by one.
I look for you when comes the beautiful blue moon,
When earth is a queen whose soul hath taken flight,
Embalmed in the entire strength of perfect light.
The immense heaven, a vase of utter silence, towers
Vastward, beyond where dreams the unawakened moon,
Holding infinity and her invisible flowers.
The hours drum up at sunset; now the west awakes
To armies. Suddenly across the firmament
Couriers of light spur forth their captain’s high intent.
Now devout legions, mustering heavenward without cease,
Face the hushed hordes of night. A trumpet-radiance breaks–
I see the young ranked glories marching down to peace.
Twilight, and great with silence of beginning dreams,
Yet haunted still by broken hosts in brave retreat,
Of blameless cohorts whelmed into sublime defeat,
Which, darkly under world their ragged spears withdraw,
Shall rise to fire the night in far victorious gleams,
When over the towered east leaps the white sword of dawn.
So do I want you, when in heavenly spaces God
Slips His white wonders on the silent trail of time;
When out the smoking eve begins to slowly climb
A great, red, fearsome flower, about whose fatal face
The faint moths gather and die–till withered pale, she nod
Far in the west, and morn the little dreams shall chase.
Now is the world at peace; Heaven unto her heart
Holdeth sublimities afar from touch of day,
Presents divine the fates shall never take away,
Unfaded memories, immortal ponderings,
The little knock of prayer whereby are thrown apart
Those inner doors which lead into all priceless things.
O night, mother divine of poetry and stars!
O thou whose patient face is nearest unto God,
Thou of chaste feet with beautiful oblivion shod,
Having the dear, swift-winged dark within thy hands,–
The prison invisible of souls thy peace unbars,
And love and I rise up into unspoken lands.