"Dawn on the Willamette"

Dawn on the Willamette

Between the pale blue of the morning sky

            And the soft, deeper violet of the hill

            Mount Hood stands like a virgin, white and still.

The purple mists across the valley lie,

Run thro’ and thro’ with primrose lances―ay,

            With rose and amethyst. Sweet, loud and shrill,

            With little swelling throats, the dawn-birds trill

Their glad hearts out in praise; and proud and high,

The sun vibrates into the blue, and sets

            Willamette burning like a chain of brass,

            And all the steeples into silhouettes

Of flame against the sky. Up from the grass

            A pilgrim skylark soars, and throbbing higher,

            Shakes all the air with passion and desire.

"Dawn on the Willamette" as it appears in Ella Higginson's When the Birds Go North Again (1898).