Summer Dawn
by William Morris

English poet, translator, essayist, publisher and printer. His first published work was The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems (1858). He achieved success as a poet with a romantic narrative, The Life and Death of Jason. He wrote a series of narrative poems collected in The Earthly Paradise (1868). His principal achievement is considered to be the epic Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs (1876), influenced by the Old Norse sagas. Among his best romances are A Dream of John Ball (1886) and News from Nowhere (1890). Underrated as a poet, he is remembered more as a designer and craftsman.

← Previous Poem William Morris Next Poem →

Summer Dawn
by William Morris

Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips,
Think but one thought of me up in the stars.
The summer night waneth, the morning light slips,
Faint and grey 'twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the cloud-bars,
They are patiently waiting there for the dawn:
Patient and colourless, though Heaven's gold
Waits to float through them along with the sun.
Far out in the meadows, above the young corn,
The heavy elms wait, and restless and cold
The uneasy wind rises; the roses are dun;
Through the long twilight they pray for the dawn,
Round the lone house in the midst of the corn.
Speak but one word to me over the corn,
Over the tender, bowed locks of the corn.

← Previous Poem William Morris Next Poem →

Summer Dawn by William Morris