O sleeper, awake!

Bare your forehead, waiting for the first blessing of light, and
sing with the bird of the morning in glad faith.



XXVI

The beggar in me lifted his lean hands to the starless sky and
cried into night's ear with his hungry voice.

His prayers were to the blind Darkness who lay like a fallen god
in a desolate heaven of lost hopes.

The cry of desire eddied round a chasm of despair, a wailing bird
circling its empty nest.

But when morning dropped anchor at the rim of the East, the
beggar in me leapt and cried:

"Blessed am I that the deaf night denied me--that its coffer was
empty."

He cried, "O Life, O Light, you are precious! and precious is the
joy that at last has known you!"



XXVII