Poems (Blake)/Morning

by Mary Elizabeth Blake

For works with similar titles, see Morning.

MORNING.

Fair on the eastern hills are the beautiful feet of the Morning,
Waking the psalm of life and the matin hymn of labor;
Touching with heavenly fire the looming mountains of shadow,
Till the hidden landscape flames in a sudden blaze of glory:
Calling with earnest voice the breeze that slept in the valleys,
Till it beats with a quicker pulse, dashing the mist before it.
Over her laughing eyes the veil of the dawn is floating,
Hiding the sudden light that else would startle and blind us,
Shading her blushing face, till, casting its veiling from her
She shines on our dazzled eyes, the fairest queen of the hours.
Hers are the gentle hands that tap at the dreamer's window,
Chasing the shapes away that people his land of shadows,
While with a voice that falls like the far-off ripple of fountains
Heard through the summer trees, thus does she sing beside him:
"Wake! for the darkness flies; wake! for the world is waiting;
Life is begun anew with all its promise before you;
Thine are the golden hours that fill the hand of the Present.
Wake ere the moments pass, and gathering strength from prayer,
Light on the altar of life a lamp that shall brighten the future!"

Hers are the rosy lips that bend by the sick man's pillow,
Cooling with lingering breath the flush on the heated forehead,
Waking the smile of hope that fled in the dark night-watches,
And kissing the restless eyes like touch of a swift-winged blessing.
Memory holds the past, and shrouding her face in darkness,
Sits by its silent doors and waits the coming of evening,
Then on its golden hinge turning the shadowy portal
Bears to the waiting heart the wealth of its buried treasure;
But clasping her sister's hand, the angel who guards the future
Hope, with her shining hair-walks through the rose-bright hours,
Cleaving the morning air; then lifting her radiant pinions,
Rises above the clouds, and pierces the blue beyond them.

Thus when the sunset sleeps on the old man's silver tresses,
Shading his weary eyes, he turns where Memory waits him,
Holding again the crown he won in the days departed.
But in the time when youth stands on the threshold of manhood,
Daring with eagle glance the blaze of its morning sunshine,
Hope on her shining wings pierces the way before him,
Flushing the path with light that soon will be lost forever,
Pointing to bliss beyond, and urging his swift feet onward.