Light
Dublin Core
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The sun rolled black and bare,
Till I wove him a vest for his Ethiop breast,Of the threads of my golden hair;
And when the broad tent of the firmamentArose on its airy spars,
I pencilled the hue of its matchless blue,And spangled it round with stars.
And their leaves of living green,
And mine were the dyes in the sinless eyesOf Eden's virgin queen;
And when the Friend's art on her trustful heartHad fastened its mortal spell,
In the silvery sphere of the first-born tearTo the trembling earth I fell.
Their work of wrath had sped,
And the Ark's lone few, the tried and true,Came forth among the dead;
With the wondrous gleams of my braided beams,I bade their terrors cease,
As I wrote on the roll of the storm's dark scrollGod's covenant of peace.
Night's funeral shadow slept,
Where shepherd swains on the Bethlehem plainsTheir lonely vigils kept;
When I flashed on their sight the heralds brightOf heaven's redeeming plan,
As they chanted the morn of a Saviour born -Joy, joy, to the outcast Man!
On the just and the unjust I descend;
E'en the blind, whose vain spheres roll in darkness and tearsFeel my smile the blest smile of a friend:
Nay, the flower of the waste by my love is embraced,As the rose in the garden of kings;
At the chrysalis bier of the worm I appear,And lo! the gay butterfly's wings!
Conceals all the pride of her charms,
Till I bid the bright Hours chase the Night from her bowers,And lead the young Day to her arms:
And when the gay rover seeks Eve for his lover,And sinks to her balmy repose,
I wrap their soft rest by the zephyr-fanned west,In curtains of amber and rose.
I gaze with unslumbering eye,
When the cynosure star of the marinerIs blotted from the sky;
And guided by me through the merciless sea,Though sped by the hurricane's wings,
His compassless bark, lone, weltering, dark,To the haven-home safely he brings.
The birds in their chambers of green,
And mountain and plain glow with beauty again,As they bask in my matinal sheen.
O if such the glad worth of my presence to earth,Though fitful and fleeting the while,
What glories must rest in the home of the blest,Ever bright with the DEITY'S smile!
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