As doth eternity.
The same vivid realisation of the presence of the supernatural in nature under truly pagan forms is seen in Carducci's poem “To Aurora” [VII]:
Thou risest and kissest, O Goddess, with rosy breath the clouds,
Kissest the dusky pinnacles of marble temples.
In this poem is contrasted in most realistic manner the Greek sense of the sunlight as a divine presence, imparting only joy to men and leading them to seek their delights under the open sky, with the exhausting nightly dissipations of modern life and the hatred of daylight which recalls men to their labour:
Ours is a wearied race:
Sad is thy face, O Aurora, when thou risest over our towers.
The dim street-lamps go out, and, not even glancing at thee,
A pale-faced troop go home imagining they have been happy.
Angrily at his door is pounding the ill-tempered labourer,