When the firmament quivers with daylight's young beam

When the firmament quivers with daylight's young beam,
And the woodlands awaking burst into a hymn,
And the glow of the sky blazes back from the stream,—
How the bright ones of heaven in the brightness grow dim!

Oh, 'tis sad, in that moment of glory and song,
To see, while the hill-tops are waiting the sun,
The glittering band that kept watch all night long
O'er Love and o'er Slumber, go out one by one.

Till the circle of ether, deep, ruddy, and vast,
Scarce glimmers with one of the train that were there;
And their leader the day-star, the brightest and last,
Twinkles faintly and fades in that desert of air.

Thus, Oblivion, from midst of whose shadow we came,
Steals o'er us again when life's twilight is gone;
And the crowd of bright names, in the heaven of fame,
Grow pale and are quenched as the years hasten on.

Let them fade—but we'll pray that the age, in whose flight,
Of ourselves and our friends the remembrance shall die,
May rise o'er the word, with the gladness and light
Of the dawn that effaces the stars from the sky.