Sunrise

Would you know what joy is hid     In our green Musketaquid,     And for travelled eyes what charms     Draw us to these meadow farms,     Come and I will show you all     Makes each day a festival.     Stand upon this pasture hill,     Face the eastern star until     The slow eye of heaven shall show     The world above, the world below.     Behold the miracle!     Thou saw'st but now the twilight sad     And stood beneath the firmament,     A watchman in a dark gray tent,     Waiting till God create the earth,--     Behold the new majestic birth!     The mottled clouds, like scraps of wool,     Steeped in the light are beautiful.     What majestic stillness broods     Over these colored solitudes.     Sleeps the vast East in pleasd peace,     Up the far mountain walls the streams increase     Inundating the heaven     With spouting streams and waves of light     Which round the floating isles unite:--     See the world below     Baptized with the pure element,     A clear and glorious firmament     Touched with life by every beam.     I share the good with every flower,     I drink the nectar of the hour:--     This is not the ancient earth     Whereof old chronicles relate     The tragic tales of crime and fate;     But rather, like its beads of dew     And dew-bent violets, fresh and new,     An exhalation of the time.