May Morning / Wilfred Rowland Childe

May Morning

Beneath the gray advance of day
In dreams the builded City lay:
Veiled all her spires and palaces,
And veiled the splendour of her towers,
The dew upon her starry flowers,
Her dim and many-coloured leas,
And veiled the coming of the Sun.

O magic-minded Middle Age!
Most strange it was to do a thing,
Whence comes there not to any one
The increase of his heritage,
Nor riches for his strengthening,
To mount upon a tower and sing,
And with a chaunted mystery
Salute the dim and sovran East,
Uplifting music like a feast
Above the City loved of thee:
Yea, very wonderful it was,
O crowned with amber and chrysopras,
To meet the Dawn with litany.

~~
Wilfred Rowland Childe (1890-1952)
from The Little City, 1911

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Wilfred Rowland Childe biography