At Break of Day

I thought that past the gates of doom,Where Orpheus played a strain divineOf love importunate as mine,Unto the dwellings of the dead I came through paths of gloom.

Around me, looming dark through cloud,Vast walls arose whence mournful fellThe shadow and the hush of hell;And silence, brooding, palpable, inwrapped me like a shroud.

Naught blossomed there; in that chill placeWhere longing dwells divorced from hope,Naught to a joyless horoscopeLent prophecies of future grace, but—I beheld thy face!

And I awoke,—songs trembling near,—Awoke and saw day's chariot passBright gleaming o’er the meadow-grass,And knew this glad earth, without thee, than realms of death more drear!