For well, ah well, the darkened vale recalls A thousand times ten thousand vanished suns; Ten thousand sunsets from whose blackened walls Reflamed the white and living day that runs, In light which brings all beauty to the birth, II O Thou the Lord and Maker of life and light! Darkness is but Thy shadow, and the day And all is done, we shall not be afraid, But pass from light to light; from earth's dull gleam Into the very heart and heaven of our dream. LYRICS PART I ODE I I AM the spirit of the morning sea; I am the awakening and the glad surprise; I fill the skies With laughter and with light. Not tears, but jollity At birth of day brim the strong man-child's eyes. Wide threefold beams that from the hidden sun One where Orion keeps His armèd watch, and one That to the midmost starry heaven upleaps; II I light the sea and wake the sleeping land. My footsteps on the hills make music, and my hand Plays like a harper's on the wind-swept pines. With the wind and the day I follow round the world away! away! And me the western sloping mountains know, and me O sea, whereon the passing sun doth lie! O man, who watchest by that golden sea! Grieve not, O, grieve not thou, but lift thine eye And see me glorious in the sunset sky! I love not the night III Save when the stars are bright, Or when the moon Fills the white air with silence like a tune. Yea, even the night is mine When the Northern Lights outshine, And all the wild heavens throb in ecstasy divine; Yea, mine deep midnight, tho' the black sky lowers, When the sea burns white and breaks on the shore in starry showers. IV I am the laughter of the new-born child First songs of birds, not perfect as at last, — But sweet, O, sweet! And I the first faint glimmer of a star To the wreckt ship that tells the storm is past; |