At Dawn

O Hesper-Phosphor, far awayShining, the first, the last white star,Hear'st thou the strange, the ghostly cry,That moan of an ancient agonyFrom purple forest to golden skyShivering over the breathless bay?It is not the wind that wakes with the day;For see, the gulls that wheel and call,Beyond the tumbling white-topped bar,Catching the sun-dawn on their wings,Like snow-flakes or like rose-leaves fall,Flutter and fall in airy rings;And drift, like lilies ruffling into blossomUpon some golden lake's unwrinkled bosom.

Are not the forest's deep-lashed fringes wetWith tears? Is not the voice of all regretBreaking out of the dark earth's heart?She too, she too, has loved and lost; and we--We that remember our lost Aready,Have we not known, we too,The primal greenwood's arch of blue,The radiant clouds at sun-rise curledAround the brows of the golden world;The marble temples, washed with dew,To which with rosy limbs aflameThe violet-eyed Thalassian came,Came, pitiless, only to displayHow soon the youthful splendour dies away;Came, only to departLaughing across the grey-grown bitter sea;For each man's life is earth's epitome,And though the years bring more than aught they take,Yet might his heart and hers well breakRemembering how one prayer must still be vain.How one fair hope is dead,One passion quenched, one glory fledWith those first loves that never come again.

How many years, how many generations,Have heard that sigh in the dawn,When the dark earth yearns to the unforgotten nationsAnd the old loves withdrawn,Old loves, old lovers, wonderful and unnumberedAs waves on the wine-dark sea,'Neath the tall white towers of Troy and the temples that slumberedIn Thessaly?

From the beautiful palaces, from the miraculous portals,The swift white feet are flown!They were taintless of dust, the proud, the peerless ImmortalsAs they sped to their loftier throne!Perchance they are there, earth dreams, on the shores of Hesper,Her rosy-bosomed Hours,Listening the wild fresh forest's enchanted whisper,Crowned with its new strange flowers;Listening the great new ocean's triumphant thunderOn the stainless unknown shore,While that perilous queen of the world's delight and wonderComes white from the foam once more.

When the mists divide with the dawn o'er those glittering waters,Do they gaze over unoared seas--Naiad and nymph and the woodland's rose-crowned daughtersAnd the Oceanides?Do they sing together, perchance, in that diamond splendour,That world of dawn and dew,With eyelids twitching to tears and with eyes grown tenderThe sweet old songs they knew,The songs of Greece? Ah, with harp-strings mute do they falterAs the earth like a small star pales?When the heroes launch their ship by the smoking altarDoes a memory lure their sails?Far, far away, do their hearts resume the storyThat never on earth was told,When all those urgent oars on the waste of gloryCast up its gold?

Are not the forest fringes wetWith tears? Is not the voice of all regretBreaking out of the dark earth's heart?She too, she too, has loved and lost; and thoughShe turned last night in disdainAway from the sunset-embers,From her soul she can never depart;She can never depart from her pain.Vainly she strives to forget;Beautiful in her woe,She awakes in the dawn and remembers.