Daybreak.
By Harriet Annie Wilkins
Turn thy fair face to the breaking dawn,
Lily so white, that through all the dark,
Hast kept lone watch on the dewy lawn,
Deeming thy comrades grown cold and stark;
Soon shall the sunbeam, joyous and strong,
Dry the tears in thy stamens of gold--
Glinteth the day up merry and long,
And the night grows old.
Turn thy fair face to Faith's rosy sky,
Soul so white that lone night hath kept
Sighing for spirits sin-bound that lie;
Wrong has ruled right, and the truth has slept;
The dawn shall show thee a host ere long,
Planting sweet roses abqve the mould;
The sun of righteousness beameth strong,
And sin's night grows old.
Turn thine eyes to the burnished zone
From out of thy nest neath darkened eaves,
Oh bird, who hast mingled thy plaintive moan
With sobbing winds through quivering leaves;
From thy heart, by light which groweth strong,
Draw out the thorns that pierced on the world;
Glinteth the day up merry and long,
And the night grows old.
Turn thy sad eyes to God's summerland,
Mourner, who waileth some love laid past,
Some bark that has anchored on foreign strand
And left her sailors free from the blast;
They are not here where the grass grows long,
They are not down in the red-brown mould;
Heaven's day is coming up fair and strong,
And earth's night grows old.