I AWOKE from the dreams of the night,

From restful and tranquil repose,

And looked where the sunbeams lay bright,

To see what the morn might disclose.

My window looked out on the east,

And opened to welcome the sun,

As he rose, from the darkness released,

All girded, his journey to run.

I watched, as I lay,

The leaf-shadows play—

For the trees were still mantled in green—

As they silently danced,

Curvetted and pranced,

On the curtain suspended between.

Then I said to my soul: Here's some thought

For thee to decipher and read;

Every form, that in nature is wrought,

Bears some lesson to those who give heed.

Between our weak eyes and the light

A thick-woven curtain is spread;

All the future it screens from our sight,

And the home and the fate of the dead.

The phantoms which still

With perplexity chill,

Then I drew the broad curtain aside,

And looked out on the beautiful world;

The dewdrops were flashing, and wide

Were the banners of beauty unfurled.

The leaves that had silently flung

Their shadows to darken my room,

Each answered with musical tongue

To the zephyrs that played with its bloom.—

And thus it may be

At life's ending with me,

When death rends the curtain away;

I may rise to behold

In beauty unrolled

The morn of a shadowless day.