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The silence deepens. The grey cold light,
   Stealing over the pools and the reeds —
Is it only the common dawn? This night
   For more than the morning intercedes.

Oh night, and have I not also prayed?
   Oh dawn, and have I not also cried —
Betrayed! betrayed! betrayed! betrayed! -
   Unto the hollow spaces wide?

                 It is the place!
And now as the vapours rise,
   And now as the mist recedes,
In his old immortal guise,
   Looking down on the reeds,
Luminous, lovely, silver bright,
   Heaven's antagonist, bearer of light;
Still untouched by passion's stir,
   Loving the earth and laughing at her —
   Son of the Morning, Lucifer!

Then I heard them. From the far
   Ledges of the dawn I heard them.
Every fragile, quivering thing
   Of earth's primal gendering;
Every hidden, trembling, shy
   Child of ancient mystery,
Raised a cry out of the cold
   Shadows of the forests old;
Cold and low and sweet and clear,
   Like a sea-shell held to a sea-god's ear —