The First Dawn

He that engenders had called forth the world;

The mist, ingathered from the vast of space,

Together drawn, had fashioned a great face

Of vale and mountain, tree, and river curled.

Of all the leaves and flowers was none unfurled,

No bird had song, no voice the giant race

Of beasts; for darkness held her ancient place,

The day-god's bolt glowed in his hand, unhurled.

But eastward, now, dream-colors, faint and far,

Foretold to those first lives the end of night,

And from black silence all leapt up as one;

The mother-dark, with neither moon nor star,

Was thick with wild eyes looking for the light,

And throats of thunder for the coming sun.