The dawn

Voice of unseen spirits

The pale stars are gone!

For the sun, their swift shepherd,

To their folds them compelling,

In the depths of the dawn,

Hastes, in meteor-eclipsing array, and they flee

Beyond his blue dwelling,

As fawns flee the leopard.

But where are ye?

A Train of dark Forms and Shadows passes by confusedly, singing.

Here, oh, here!

We bear the bier

Of the father of many a cancelled year!

Spectres we

Of the dead Hours be;

We bear Time to his tomb in eternity.

Strew, oh, strew

Hair, not yew!

Wet the dusty pall with tears, not dew!

Be the faded flowers

Of Death's bare bowers

Spread on the corpse of the King of Hours!

Haste, oh, haste!

As shades are chased,

Trembling, by day, from heaven's blue waste,

We melt away,

Like dissolving spray,

From the children of a diviner day,

With the lullaby

Of winds that die

On the bosom of their own harmony!