Whence has he word of the morning before the morning breaks, and when the dragon night still holds the sky in its cold black coils?
Tell me, bird of the morning, how, through the twofold night of the sky and the leaves, he found his way into your dream, the messenger out of the east?
The world did not believe you when you cried, “The sun is on his way, the night is no more.”
O sleeper, awake!
Bare your forehead, waiting for the first blessing of light, and sing with the bird of the morning in glad faith.
XXVI
The beggar in me lifted his lean hands to the starless sky and cried into night’s ear with his hungry voice.
His prayers were to the blind Darkness who lay like a fallen god in a desolate heaven of lost hopes.
The cry of desire eddied round a chasm of despair, a wailing bird circling its empty nest.
But when morning dropped anchor at the rim of the East, the beggar in me leapt and cried: