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IT IS the morning star, arising slow Out of yon hill’s dark bulk, as she were born Of its desire for day; then glides she forth And into the dim sky, there leaving still A whiteness in her wake that whitens more As she ascends, till all the gloomy woods Are touched along their multiformous lines By a faint gleaming azure, creeping on: A few thin stripes of fleecy clouds lie long And motionless above the eastern steeps, Like threads of silver lace; till suddenly, Out from the flushing centre to the ends On either hand, their lustrous layers become Dipt all in crimson streaked with pink and gold; And then at last are edged as with a band Of crystal all on fire. Meanwhile the stars, Those golden children of eternity, Have all withdrawn within the Invisible; That skiey gleam and azure prevalence Which first bespoke the dawn works out and down Ev’n to the grassy ground; till all the trees, Clearly defined to their minutest sprays, Stand in unspeakable beauty. Long before The sun himself is seen, off towards the west A range of mighty summits more and more Blaze each like a huge cresset in the keen Clear atmosphere. As if the spirit of light Advancing swiftly thence, and eastward still, Kept kindling them in quick succession, till The universal company of cones And peaks pyramidal stand burning all With rosy fires like a wide-ranging circ Of mighty altars, where the spirit of man Can feel the presence of that greater soul Which makes all nature, and of which itself Is but an effluence, however far Projected, or detached by tract of time; Even as a sunbeam’s fountain in the sun, Whether it hit the earth or glance away Into infinitude—shooting on for ever. |