Above that wide and ruby lake to-West
Wherein the sunset waits reluctantly,
Stir silently the purple wings of Night.
She stands afar, upholding to her breast,
As mighty murmurs reach her from the sea,
Thy lone and everlasting rose of light.
II
THE CHARIOTS OF DAWN
O Night, is this indeed the morning-star,
That now with brandished and impatient beam
On eastern heights of darkness flames supreme,
Or some great captain of the dawn, whose car
Scornful of all thy rear-guard ranks that bar
His battle, now foreruns the helms that gleam
Below horizons of dissevering dream,
Who lifts his javelin to his hosts afar?
Now am I minded of some ocean-king
That in a war of gods has wielded arms,
And still in slumber hears their harness ring
And dreams of isles where golden altars fume,
Till, mad for irretrievable alarms,
He passes down the seas to some strange doom.
III
THE HUNTRESS OF STARS
Tell me, O Night! what horses hale the moon!
Those of the sun rear now on Syria’s day,
But here the steeds of Artemis delay
At heavenly rivers hidden from the noon,
Or quench their starry thirst at cisterns hewn
In midnight’s deepest sapphire, ere she slay
The Bull, and hide the Pleiades’ dismay,
Or drown Orion in a silver swoon.
Are those the stars, and not their furious eyes,
That now before her coming chariot glare?
Is that their nebulous, phantasmal breath
Trailed like a mist upon the winter skies,
Or vapors from a Titan’s pyre of death—
Far-wafted on the orbit of Altair?
THE EVANESCENT
The wind upon the mountain-side
Sang to the dew: “My moments fly:
In yonder valley I must die.
How long thy restless gems abide!”
Low to the bent and laden grass
There came the whisper of the dew:
“My lessening hours, how fleet and few!
What months are thine ere thou shalt pass!”