"Dawn"

"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 slumberous 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.

This poem reprinted as "Dawn on Puget Sound" in Overland Monthly's April 1890 edition, vol. 15 page 422.

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

"Dawn" as it appears in Ella Higginson's The Voice of April-Land (1903).