Shades away! The Day Star’s high!
Down to Erebus and Night
Ye who love the dark Domain!
Beaming Splendors fill My Eye;
Splendors of Celestial Light,
In a long, unceasing Train!The proud, announcing, Dawn is o’er
That amply tinged the orient Sky:
Rays, in many a streamy Show’r,
Slant adown the Mountains high!
Proud Liberty, with Step intense, at large appears:
Her Foot elastic spurns the Ground:
She sends a boundless Gaze around,
And contemplates the Vast of Years.
Milder Love with gentlest tread,
Lifts her soft declining head:
And while her eye with fondness swims,
And while her purpling Lamp she trims,
Paces o’er the ambient meads,
As Liberty, her Guardian, leadsPeace above surveys the Scene,
Happy treads the silent Green;
Till a long and joyous Band,
From the distance sailing on,
All sincerely hand in hand,
Beat with measur’d steps the Lawn.Love awaits their pleas’d Retreat—
Peace around the Spring Air mellows—
Liberty exults in Glory;
Mildly deigns to hear the Story
Told by Shepherds of their Fellows—
Of the Loves with Love that meet.
Wm Gilbert
Bristol. May. 26th-[17]95—
From the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections Cornell University Library
- Wordsworth Collection (#4622 Bd. Ms. 8 ++) Folios 1v- 2
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