DAWN opes her pensive eyes, <br />In the yet starry skies, <br />A roseate blush upon her cheek and brows. <br />Her purple mantle still <br />Lies on the sky-kissed hill, <br />And a blue, solemn shade thereon it throws. <br /> <br />The earth lies hushed and calm. <br />No chant of praise, no psalm <br />Riseth to greet the rose-crowned queen of day. <br />Each blade of grass, each leaf, <br />Stands out in sharp relief, <br />Against the rayless blue and silver gray. <br /> <br />All nature seems to wait <br />For some new deed of Fate; <br />The silence is a sacred, reverent prayer,— <br />When hark! from some sweet throat <br />One thrilling, quivering note <br />Fills with its tremulous music all the air. <br /> <br />Then from the dewy grass <br />A tiny form doth pass, <br />A little soul all music and all wings. <br />All nature's voice is heard, <br />Embodied in this bird, <br />That darteth up and, rising, ever sings. <br /> <br />It mounteth still and sings: <br />What soul yearns not for wings, <br />To follow after, burst its prison bars, <br />And learn the secret there, <br />In those clear realms of air, <br />The secret of the rainbow and the stars; <br /> <br />To rush as swift as light, <br />Within those regions bright <br />Of throbbing, scintillant, intensest blue; <br />The air all breathless cleave, <br />And far below to leave <br />Regrets and tears, the raindrop and the dew. <br /> <br />Ah! caged 'mongst meaner things, <br />The soul can use no wings, <br />And beats against the bars it cannot pass; <br />But it might humbly turn, <br />Essaying first to learn <br />The secret of the flowers and the grass.<br /><br />Emma Lazarus<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/wings-62/
