Drink sunshine! ‘t is the golden wine
That overflows the cup of God,
That thrills the veins of oak and vine,
Throbs down the deeps of weltering brine,
And brings a rose-blush tingling, fine,
From the dull bosom of the sod.
Old age sits ripening in its glow,
Heart-mellowed like a sawny pear,
And feels the long years come and go
In the calm pulse’s peaceful flow,
Till sinks the soft light here, below,
To rise in fadeless glory there.
Young girlhood flushes in its blaze
With kindred beauty, life and light;
Storing rich warmth for after days,
And light transformed to spiritual rays
To mellow all the evening’s haze,
And lamp with stars the transient night.
The baby claps his dimpled hands
When down like golden butterflies
The sunbeams flit to where he stands;
Above him the broad elm expands,
And with his glee its life demands
From all the overflowing skies.
Drink sunshine, bathing in its flood,
Thou future man with browning cheek;
Its fire shall mingle with thy blood,
To steel thy growing hardihood,
And fill thy soul with heavenly food
Unknown to darklings pale and weak!
How richly over land and sea
The rising tide of glory flows,
Till sky and water, rocka nd tree,
Transfused by morning’s alchemy,
One luminous ether seems to be
Throbbing with life in strength’s repose.
Come forth and revel in that tide;
A tingling spirit quivers there,
That stirs the heart and stretches wide
the arching nostril’s curl of pride,
In conscious fellowship allied
To full life pulsing everywhere.
Drink deep the mantling bowl while yet
The dewdrop sparkles on the rose,
Or young day, with his sandals wet,
Shakes odors from the violet;
The same urn is for thee o’erset
He pours for every flower that blows.
The sun’s electric life leaps out
On all its pulses of swift fire,
The wide air throbs with power about
The summer hills, the glad hills shout
And the vales answer, when in rout,
The midnight’s misty glooms retire.
Drink sunshine with the flocks and herds,
With flashing wave and flowering sod;
Sing Light with morn’s delirious birds, –
Or, thrilled beyond the reach of words,
Take all of life the round noon girds,
Fresh leaping from the heart of God!
Sun-Wine