THE DAY-STAR IN THE EAST.
253
That we can forge and bind: the crime whose stain
Is slowly fading 'neath the tears we weep;
Dead bliss which, dead, can make our pulses leap—
Oh, cruelty! To make these live again!
They say that death is sleep, and heaven's rest
Ends earth's short day, as, on the last faint gleam
Of sun, our nights shut down, and we are blest.
Let this, then, be of heaven's joy the test,
The proof if heaven be, or only seem,
That we forever choose what we will dream!
Is slowly fading 'neath the tears we weep;
Dead bliss which, dead, can make our pulses leap—
Oh, cruelty! To make these live again!
They say that death is sleep, and heaven's rest
Ends earth's short day, as, on the last faint gleam
Of sun, our nights shut down, and we are blest.
Let this, then, be of heaven's joy the test,
The proof if heaven be, or only seem,
That we forever choose what we will dream!
THE DAY-STAR IN THE EAST.
I
ACH morning, in the eastern sky, I seeThe star that morning dares to call its own.
Night's myriads it has outwatched and outshone;
Full radiant dawn pales not its majesty;
Peer of the sun, his herald fit and free.
Sudden from earth, dark, heavy mists are blown;
The city's grimy smoke, to pillars grown,
Climbs up the sky, and hides the star from me.
Strange, that a film of smoke can blot a star!
On comes, with blinding glare, the breathless day:
The star is gone. The moon doth surer lay
Than midnight gloom, athwart its light, a bar.
But steadfast as God's angels planets are.
To-morrow's dawn will show its changeless ray.
