Canto LXX
Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again,And howlest, issuing out of night,With blasts that blow the poplar white,And lash with storm the streaming pane?
Day, when my crown’d estate begunTo pine in that reverse of doom,Which sickened every living bloom,And blurr’d the splendour of the sun;
Who usherest in the dolorous hourWith thy quick tears that make the rosePull sideways, and the daisy closeHer crimson fringes to the shower;
Who might’st have heaved a windless flameUp the deep East, or, whispering, play’dA chequer-work of beam and shadeFrom hill to hill, yet look’d the same,
As wan, as chill, as wild as now;Day, mark’d as with some hideous crime,When the dark hand struck down thro’ time,And cancell’d nature’s best: but thou,
Lift as thou may’st thy burthen’d browsThro’ clouds that drench the morning star,And whirl the ungarner’d sheaf afar,And sow the sky with flying boughs,
And up thy vault with roaring soundClimb thy thick noon, disastrous day:Touch thy dull goal of joyless gray,And hide thy shame beneath the ground.