Poetry

SUNRISE IN VENICE.

Joaquin Miller


  • Night seems troubled and scarce asleep;
  • Her brows are gather'd as in broken rest.
  • A star in the east starts up from the deep!
  • Tis morn, new-born, with a star on her breast,
  • White as my lilies that grow in the West!
  • Hist! men are passing me hurriedly.
  • I see the yellow, wide wings of a bark,
  • Sail silently over my morning star.
  • I see men move in the moving dark,
  • Tall and silent as columns are;
  • Great, sinewy men that are good to see,
  • With hair push'd back, and with open breasts;
  • Barefooted fishermen, seeking their boats,
  • Brown as walnuts, and hairy as goats,
  • Brave old water-dogs, wed to the sea,
  • First to their labors and last to their rests.

  • Ships are moving! I hear a horn,
  • Answers back, and again it calls.
  • Tis the sentinel boats that watch the town
  • All night, as mounting her watery walls,
  • And watching for pirate or smuggler. Down
  • Over the sea, and reaching away,
  • And against the east, a soft light falls,
  • Silvery soft as the mist of morn,
  • And I catch a breath like the breath of day.

  • The east is blossoming! Yea, a rose,
  • Vast as the heavens, soft as a kiss,
  • Sweet as the presence of woman is,
  • Rises and reaches, and widens and grows
  • Large and luminous up from the sea,
  • And out of the sea as a blossoming tree.
  • Richer and richer, so higher and higher,
  • Deeper and deeper it takes its hue;
  • Brighter and brighter it reaches through
  • The space of heaven to the place of stars.
  • Then beams reach upward as arms, from the sea;
  • Then lances and arrows are aimed at me.
  • Then lances and spangles and spars and bars
  • Are broken and shiver'd and strown on the sea;
  • And around and about me tower and spire
  • Start from the billows like tongues of fire.