Poems (Bushnell)/The New Day

by Frances Louisa Bushnell

For works with similar titles, see The New Day.

XXIII
THE NEW DAY

Silent has been the night, and O, so long!
 With weary moon forever sailing west;
Save that a bird at midnight trilled a song,
 A dream of daylight, from his moonlit nest.

The hills lay couched in slumber, range on range,
 The earth was floating in a silver web,—
That mystery of calm before a change,
 That lull of waters at the lowest ebb.

Some drowsy notes were all the bird could sing,
 Soft as the scattered drops of summer dew;
Then, hushed within the quiet of his wing,
 He sang no more; but now the dream comes true.

A thrill runs through the spaces of the night,
 And flutters on the wavy eastern line;
Beyond the stars dilates a distant light,
 The luminous outflow of a day divine.

With slow approach it deepens into bloom,
 Faint jasmine yellow, with a flush of rose;
And, brightening till it makes the stars a gloom,
 O'er all the long uncertainty it flows.

What though the perfect day is yet unborn!
 Sweet were the carolled vision of the bird;
Glad are the tidal colors of the mom,
 And heaven is pledged without a single word.

The waves of light are breaking on the shore,
 Pulsing in cadence to a mightier flow—
The strong uplift of nobler hopes before,
 The great new future rising in the glow.

Above the hills surges the day at last,
 The longed-for day, effulgent, high and wide.
Turn, turn, gray earth, and leave the darkened past,
 And swing thyself upon the incoming tide!