Ode To Dawn Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

‘Dawn climbing yon eastern hill’
‘Dawn with a crown and scepter walked’
‘Dawn climbing the hill of Fiesole’

All these describe
Your genesis of life
And ushering of day
Good news
Dispelling solitude
And black despair.

For you
the Graces will
out of the hidden lair
arise before they could
with sleepy eyes
and still
by sweet Morpheus potioned
moving listlessly
and talking prattle
and chatting like small girls
coming out of the lecture room


Sweet Dawn reminder of the way
The cycles of life
Will come and go:
As Night hath closed the day
Another leaf you open
Another day
And so the cycle starts again.

In you
The scars that Earth
Hath gotten in the day
That went before
Are as in ablution solved
In you sweet river
In your waters fresh
As the Indian in Ganges
His cleansing makes;
As the Greek fauns and elves
That in waters sacred laved
And turned to reeds and grass
And then all back again
At will transforming them.

You too
You too
Sweet Ode to-day
Hath marked
A new
Beginning in my poesy:
In line with your namesake

And where
Sweet Dawn has trod
This early morning day
I will let flowers grow
Out of the dewy grass:
And violets appear
Where soil bare soil before
Was in the night before
When Philomel last
Rang out her lay
With grace and harmony
To the admiring moon
That gladly shone
Its languid rays to where
Our nightingale sang:


And I
And I
My lyre will take
My hands are strong
My hands are fresh
And flows in my mind
The river of Poesy:
And o’er my brow
The Muse now kisses me.

And with me here
On this small hill
That overlooks my town
Fair Botticelli
On his canvas paints:
And birds ring out into the sky
And waters gurgle in the flossy mill
And sheep and cows and


The Muse now kisses me
And here I see
The Graces coming too
And so
Together we
Will make new life again
In Dawn
In my sweet poesy
This Dawn.