White dawn, that tak'st the heaven with sweet surprise

Christopher John Brennan 1870 (Haymarket, New South Wales) – 1932 (Lewisham, New South Wales)



White dawn, that tak'st the heaven with sweet surprise
of amorous artifice,
art thou the bearer of my perfect hour
divine, untrod,
from some forgotten window of Paradise
by mighty winds of God
blown down the world, before my haunted eyes
at length to flower?
Nay, virgin dawn, yet art thou all too known,
too crowded light
to take my boundless hour of flaming peace:
thou common dayspring cease;
and be there only night, the only night,
more than all other lone:
be the sole secret world
one rose unfurl'd,
and nought disturb its blossom'd peace intense,
that fills the living deep beyond all dreams of sense
enmesh'd in errorous multiplicity:
— let be
nought but her coming there:
what else were fair?
It asks no golden web, no censer-fire
to tell the dense incarnate mystery
where one delight is wed with one desire.
No leaves bestrow
that passage to the rose of all fulfill'd delight;
no silver trumpets blow
majestic rite,
but silence that is sigh'd from faery lands,
or wraps the feet of Beauty where she treads
dim fields of fading stars,
be round our meeting heads,
and seeking hands:
draw near, ye heavens, and be our chamber-bars;
and thou, maternal heart of holy night,
close watch, what hush'd and sacramental tide
a soul goes forth wide-eyed,
to meet the archangel-sword of loneliest delight

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:10 min read
97

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDEDACFDGGDFDDHHDIJJCICCDKDLMNMLNDDDD
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,312
Words 228
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 39

Christopher John Brennan

Christopher John Brennan was an Australian poet, scholar and literary critic. more…

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