At the Dawn
WHEN the sad sun with scanty gleam of light,
Like a dull sluggard, rising slow and late,
Brings a dim dawn to mock my straining sight,
And the new day looms, heavy as a fate :—
I know that in a far-off Eastern land
A splendid morning rises o’er the sea,
Flooding with rainbow light the shining sand,
Before whose brightness all Night's shadows flee;
And think how one upon his pillow turns,
And from the sunbeam shades his dreaming eyes,
And all his heart within his bosom yearns
Towards one who in the distant darkness lies.
For him the burden, and for her the pain
Until this riven life be joined again.
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