Not yet sunrise! What a sweet gray delicate light glimmers in the air, and how fresh and cool the universal hue over every object. The sky is stainless, pure as the thoughts of Innocence, and bright as the dreams of the happy, although it wants the splendor of the risen sun. Faint, faint, as the memory of other days to the aged are those few white stars throbbing in the mid-sky, sinking deeper and deeper in the lustrous heavens. In the east is a wreathed cloud, just above the spot where the sun is expected, and evidently awaiting the period for it to burn under the glance of the orbed God, like the arch-angel nearest to the Throne of the Mighty. The west is dusky with the outlines of the forest upon it misty and undefined, as if the breath of the vanished night was still lingering there. Nothing is there to arrest my gaze; but the east draws my eye toward it with the power of a magnet. The east! solemn and mysterious spot in the wide heavens! how it sways, with its mighty influence, the whole human race.
Upon its brow did the splendid Star of the Nativity blaze out with its sudden glory, upon the astonished eyes of the shepherds upon the hill-side, and there was the group of angels unveiled to the cowering mortals who heard, as they shuddered upon their mother earth, the glad anthem of “Peace on earth—good-will to men,” pealing through the brightened heavens, and echoing even down to the dim, night-clad scene around them.
From the east did the steps of the “wise men” come when they brought their gifts of “frankincense and myrrh” to the hallowed infant in the manger. And even now, as the first level ray streams across the desert, does the wild Arab check the lofty step of his camel, and kneeling toward the east, join in the praise then ascending from a thousand minarets, that “God is great and Mahomet is his Prophet.”
To the east then will I turn, and with no infidel praise in my heart, but with the feeling of pure gratitude to that beneficent Being who has watched my pillow through the “dangers of the past night,” I gaze upon it. Ha! that sudden flash, like the leaping of flame upon the altar! How the wreathed cloud starts into light—how it brightens, how it glows! like the iron in the furnace, how it turns to sudden red! Now o’er its downy surface a crimson flush is spread! now its edges burn with gold, it is a glorious banner now, burning, gleaming, flaring, glaring on the east’s illuminated brow.
What a splendid object! and yet but a few moments ago it was nothing but a wreath of cold gray vapor—a fragment doubtless of that dim blanket which kept the stars from shining the past night. What a splendid object, and yet the tints will soon fade, and it will once more turn to a dim curl of cloud insignificant and hueless. Solomon’s mantle will change to a garment that a beggar would scorn, particularly if the morning should be cold. Garments of cloud may be very romantic, but they would prove deucedly uncomfortable, particularly in winter I fancy, although the sun does turn them into golden, crimson, and jeweled glories.
But the east is kindling brighter and brighter, and at last a spot, directly beneath the cloud, is burning almost like “white heat.” That is the bath of splendor into which the sun will rush when it spurns the mountain top and launches into the heavens. And see the lower edge now burns with a fire that sears the very eyeball, and ha! yes, there comes the sun. Up, up, with slow and stately, and solemn motion as yet, up, up, with seeming accelerated speed; now it launches into its bath of splendor, and in plain Saxon, it is sunrise.
Two broad streams of light roll toward me. One comes flashing directly in front, tipping the summit of “Tonner’s hill,” and placing, quick as thought, bright caps of gold upon the pines and hemlocks of the next ridge this way, thence lighting upon “Brownson’s Hill,” and helmeting the pines and hemlocks of that locality, and thence hitting here and touching there, it bathes with rosy splendor the chimneys of the village, and they straightway, like altars just touched by flame, begin, every mother’s son of them, to smoke. And not your blue, common smoke either, but smoke of lapis lazuli, or whatever other hue is radiant and rich.
The other beam shoots off to the left, and leaving the valley-meadows below Tonner’s, still steeped in their silver down of mist, it glorifies the summits of the next wood, and spreads in a huge ring of golden glow upon the tops of the forests that form the framework of “Pleasant Pond.” One towering pine that plumes a green turban of a hill near the liquid silver of the pond, has caught the splendor upon its apex, and how the glad light there laughs and sparkles and dances. Like the brain of a poet when the pure fire descends upon it, it seems to break out into a glow of inspiration, and hark! borne to the fine and subtle ear of fancy, through the intervening space thus sounds the song of this Memnon of the forest—its sunrise hymn —
Hail to the morning, hail! hail to its light and its splendor!
Hail to its keen swift arrows! hail to its joy and its gladness!