A Summer Sunrise

AFTER LEE O. HARRIS     The master-hand whose pencils trace         This wondrous landscape of the morn,     Is but the sun, whose glowing face     Reflects the rapture and the grace         Of inspiration Heaven-born.     And yet with vision-dazzled eyes,         I see the lotus-lands of old,     Where odorous breezes fall and rise,     And mountains, peering in the skies,         Stand ankle-deep in lakes of gold.     And, spangled with the shine and shade,         I see the rivers raveled out     In strands of silver, slowly fade     In threads of light along the glade         Where truant roses hide and pout.     The tamarind on gleaming sands         Droops drowsily beneath the heat;     And bowed as though aweary, stands     The stately palm, with lazy hands         That fold their shadows round his feet.     And mistily, as through a veil,         I catch the glances of a sea     Of sapphire, dimpled with a gale     Toward Colch's blowing, where the sail         Of Jason's Argo beckons me.     And gazing on and farther yet,         I see the isles enchanted, bright     With fretted spire and parapet,     And gilded mosque and minaret,         That glitter in the crimson light.     But as I gaze, the city's walls         Are keenly smitten with a gleam     Of pallid splendor, that appalls     The fancy as the ruin falls         In ashen embers of a dream.     Yet over all the waking earth         The tears of night are brushed away,     And eyes are lit with love and mirth,     And benisons of richest worth         Go up to bless the new-born day.