The smile of the Dawn is forever as sweet,
As welcome the dance of her beautiful feet,
As when on the darkness of Chaos she came.
And the blossoms of Eden were born of her flame.
From the cold lap of Winter the Spring slowly comes,
And the little bird sings and the little brook hums;
And the hearts of the million are glad, as if Earth
Now first gave to Life its inscrutable birth.
White lily, the spotless madonna of flowers,
Is a wonder to-day, as in Paradise bowers,
That summer to summer as gladly repeats
As when the first morning was bathed in her sweets.
The stars in their courses return and return,
And as clear in the soul of the poet they burn
As when the Chaldean looked upward with awe
And the Heralds of God in their multitude saw.
So the soul of a maiden, diviner than these,
Has a dawn ever sweeter with golden increase,
A bloom ever purer, as seasons go by,
And a lovelight more deep in her clear, beaming eye.
We sing in that dawn as a bird on the bough;
We are glad in that spring-blooming, – never as now;
The repose of her eye-light, – a star in blue air,
Lifts the heart to a world where its pulses are prayer.
Renewal and Growth are the immanent jar
Of a Word that went out to the first morning star;
Creation Eternal, – God here, as of old,
Breathing life into forms that forever unfold.
Renewal