When the firmament quivers with daylight's young beam, <br />And the woodlands awaking burst into a hymn, <br />And the glow of the sky blazes back from the stream, <br />How the bright ones of heaven in the brightness grow dim. <br /> <br />Oh! 'tis sad, in that moment of glory and song, <br />To see, while the hill-tops are waiting the sun, <br />The glittering band that kept watch all night long <br />O'er Love and o'er Slumber, go out one by one: <br /> <br />Till the circle of ether, deep, ruddy, and vast, <br />Scarce glimmers with one of the train that were there; <br />And their leader the day-star, the brightest and last, <br />Twinkles faintly and fades in that desert of air. <br /> <br />Thus, Oblivion, from midst of whose shadow we came, <br />Steals o'er us again when life's twilight is gone; <br />And the crowd of bright names, in the heaven of fame, <br />Grow pale and are quenched as the years hasten on. <br /> <br />Let them fade--but we'll pray that the age, in whose flight, <br />Of ourselves and our friends the remembrance shall die <br />May rise o'er the world, with the gladness and light <br />Of the morning that withers the stars from the sky.<br /><br />William Cullen Bryant<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/when-the-firmament-quivers-with-daylight-s-young-beam/
