MATINS

Good morning, friend! What of the night?

Through yonder cloud one shaft of light,

Shot from the bow of Hunter Day,

Strikes on the world; his hound-winds bay

Down valleys where the wheat and rye

Their gold with green of forest vie.

Lift up your head! Behold how fair

Creation is: The ocean-air

Beats billowing upon the strand

Of endless leagues of summer land,

And freighted ships of scented bales,

Wild blossoms, spread their tinctured sails.

See how God with an artist's grace

Gives soul to every flower-face!

Beneath His touch a leaf is green,

A berry, red! Mark how, between

The captive daisies, come and pass

Phalanxes of the guarding grass!

The night was dark, you say: wild fears

Took shape on torrent-flood of tears;

Dim phantoms of the host of hate

Pursued you down the gulfs of fate,

Smiting you with their harpy-wings

Up steeps of weird imaginings!

My friend! Each in his turn has known

Night and her shapes of fear; the stone

Of striving Sisyphus has torn

All who have dared the mount of Morn:

The tree where Buddha's vision fell

Was planted in a pit of hell!

No soul has seen its promised land,

Who felt not first some Pharaoh's hand —

Behind achievement, stir and stress

Of desert-days and wilderness;

Learn by the way that Jesu trod

How from the brute man grows a god!

Who stands against you in your path

May reap with you your aftermath;

And less of bitterness than bliss

Is stored within a traitor's kiss:

The demon who holds back your soul

Will crown you victor at the goal!

The bugles blow, the trumpets call,

And at their sound the towers fall;

Beleaguered bastions are down

Within yon ancient fortressed town:

Go up and let each cobbled street

Clang back to your triumphant feet!