Classic Poem

Let in the dawn,
Draw wide the curtain now,
See, like a trembling fawn,
The pallid moon before day's archer flies.
O Love, before this beauty let us bow:
Such adoration best befits
The souls that love together knits;
Then let us like dew-spangled buds arise
And with the helpful hours, unfold our enterprise.

And what this is,
Content are we to know
Souls unordained by bliss
Would mock, as aught they ne'er may comprehend,
And such as to their loveless labours go
Like stubborn mules that need a goad
To make them bear the unwilling load,
Must think most foolishly our day we spend,
Who ask no earthly prize, nor seek material end.

But O, my Dear,
This day — this happy day,
Life's sunrise doth appear,
And we, beams of his still unwearied might,
Go forth to warm all quick responsive clay;
For at the welling fount of joy
We drank of love that will not cloy
And found the pleasures use puts not to flight
Hid in love's radiant sanctuary of delight.

Until this day
We were but fitful gleams
That flash and pass away:
Young fledglings, half mistrustful of their wings:
Poets that babble only of their dreams;
Poor way-worn pilgrims that repine
The journey to their wished-for shrine;
We knew not that love's dear fruition brings
A richer joy than seed-time's best imaginings.

What heavenly sign
Has graced our marriage feast!
Dull water turned to wine!
The muddy vesture changed to glistering gold!
Giving all our store, we find our store increased,
Until the youngest-hearted child
Must wonder if we have beguiled
The native innocence that makes him bold
To bring the moon and stars into his fancy's fold.

Look how the sun
Doth woo the waiting earth!
He does not fondly run
Seeking meridian glory ere she wake;
But gilding e'en the shameful clouds with mirth,
He slowly gains her admiration
Until he reach love's highest station,
When all her comeliness for his dear sake
She will unveil, that in his arms he may her take.

So didst thou lie. —
Nay, wherefore should I tell
What thy love-laden eye
Reveals and hides within its wistful gaze?
O beauteous earth! O still-unsounded well!
Within whose depths truth clearer grows
To him that ever deeper goes:
Who dost not tire of summer's longest days,
Nor shield thy fertile dew from noontide's fiercest rays:

Thou art the key.
In thee, O Love, I find
Life's perfect liberty. —
Nor shall it be that we like misers hoard
The gift that frees — that can alone us bind;
Nay rather will we ever shower
Our richest joy, our fairest dower
On love-awaiting souls, since thus a cord
Encircling the wide earth, is bound by love, our lord.

For, as a stream
Embowered with arching trees,
Lapt in a heavy dream,
With sluggish pace a languid journey makes,
Anon in bursting foam its beauty frees
As down the waterfall it flows,
Where an unfading rainbow glows;
So human life to joy and splendour breaks
When love, even as this dawn, to its own glory wakes.