A Lyric of the Dawn

When men beheld swift deities descend,
Before the race was left alone with Time,
Homesick on Earth, and homeless to the end,
When bird and beast could make a man their
friend;

Before great Pan was dead,

Before the naiads fled;

When maidens white with dark eyes shy and
bold,

With peals of laughter on the peaks of gold,
Startled the still dawn.

Shone in upon the mountains and were gone,
Their voices fading silverly in depths of forests old.
Sing of the wonders of their woodland. ways,
Before the weird earth-hunger of these days,
When there was rippling mirth,

When justice was on Earth,

And light and grandeur of the Golden Age;
When never a heart was sad,

When all from king to herdsman had

A penny for a wage.

Ah, that old time has faded to a dream

ne moon's fair face is broken in the stream;

Yet shout and carol on, O bird, and let

'The exiled race not utterly forget;

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A Lyric of the Dawn

Publish thy revelation on the lawns-
Sing ever in the dark ethereal dawns;
Sometime, in some sweet year,

These stormy souls, these men of Earth

But hark again,

From the secret glen,

That voice of rapture and ethereal youth

Now laden with despair.

Forbear, O bird, forbear:

Is life not terrible enough, forsooth ?

Cease, cease the mystic song

No more, no more, the passion and the pain:
It wakes my life to fret against the chain;
It makes me think of all the agèd wrong.
Of joy and the end of joy and the end of all
Of souls on Earth, and souls beyond recall.
Ah, ah, that voice again!

It makes me think of all these restless men,
Called into time-their progress and their goal;
And now, oh now,
it sends into my soul
Dreams of a love that might have been for me—
That might have been-and now can never be.
Tell me no more of these—

Tell me of trancèd trees

A Lyric of the Dawn

(The ghosts, the memories, in pity spare);
Show me the leafy home of the wild bees;
Show me the snowy summits dim in air;
Tell me of things afar

In valleys silent under moon and star:
Dim hollows hushed with night,
The lofty cedars misty in the light,
Wild clusters of the vine,

Wild odors of the pine,

The eagle's eyrie lifted to the moon —
High places where on quiet afternoon

A shadow swiftens by, a thrilling scream
Startles the cliff, and dies across the woodland to a

dream.

Ha, now

He springs from the bough,

It flickers- he is lost!

Out of the copse he sprang;

This is the floating briar where he tossed:
The leaves are yet atremble where he sang.
Here a long vista opens-look!

Through the pale poplars by the pond:
Hark! he is shouting in the field beyond.

A Lyric of the Dawn

Ho, there he goes

Through the alder close!

He leaves me here behind him in his flight,

And yet my heart

goes with him out of sight!

What whispered spell

Of Faëry calls me on from dell to dell?

I hear the voice-it wanders in a dream

Now in the grove, now on the hill, now on the fading stream.

Lead on-you know the way—
Lead on to Arcady,

O'er fields asleep; by river bank abrim;
Down leafy ways, dewy and cool and dim;

By dripping rocks, dark dwellings of the gnome,
Where hurrying waters dash their crests to foam.
I follow where you lead,

Down winding paths, across the flowery mead, Down silent hollows where the woodbine blows, Up water-courses scented by the rose.

I follow the wandering voice

I follow, I rejoice,

I fade away into the Age of Gold

We two together lost in forest old.

A Lyric of the Dawn

O ferny and thymy paths, O fields of Aidenn,
Canyons and cliffs by mortal feet untrod!
O souls that are weary and are heavy laden,
Here is the peace of God!

Lo! now the clamoring hours are on the way:
Faintly the pine tops redden in the ray;
From vale to vale fleet-footed rumors run,
With sudden apprehension of the sun;
A light wind stirs

The filmy tops of delicate dim firs,
And on the river border blows,
Breaking the shy bud softly to a rose.

Sing out, O throstle, sing:

I follow on, my king:

Lead me forever through the crimson dawn

Till the world ends, lead me on!

Ho there! he shouts again-he sways-
Upspringing from the bough,

-and now,

Flashing a glint of dew upon the ground,

Without a sound

He drops into a valley and is gone!