Meditações - Watching the tender hours go dreamily

Dawn

The soft-toned clock upon the stair chimed three—

   Too sweet for sleep, too early yet to rise.

   In restful peace I lay with half-closed eyes,

Watching the tender hours go dreamily;

The tide was flowing in; I heard the sea

   Shivering along the sands; while yet the skies

   Were dim, uncertain, as the light that lies

Beneath the fretwork of some wild-rose tree

Within the thicket gray. The chanticleer

   Sent drowsy calls across the slumbrous air;

   In solemn silence sweet it was to hear

My own heart beat . . . Then broad and deep and fair—

   Trembling in its new birth from heaven’s womb—

   One crimson shaft of dawn sank thro’ my room.

Ella Higginson