Song at Daybreak
Unto the portal of the Day there came
A shining presence fashioned out of flame,
And from that purple threshold of the world
Arrows of fire across the shadows hurled.
Into the forest, over plain and sea
The darts in silence sped unerringly,—
Lances of sunlight from the Morning’s bow,—
Until the firmament was all aglow.
Then from the zenith suddenly I heard
The dew-fresh notes of some enraptured bird,
Lost in the golden labyrinth of light,
Singing the dreams of a departed Night.
From A Southern Flight (G. W. Browning, 1905) by Frank Dempster Sherman. This poem is in the public domain.
Frank Dempster Sherman
Poet, architect, genealogist, and mathematician Frank Dempster Sherman was born in Peekskill, New York, on May 6, 1860. He attended Peekskill Military Academy. He studied architecture at Columbia University, where he earned a PhB in 1884. He then studied classical literature at Harvard University as a postgraduate for a year.