Charles Bertram Johnson, "The Higher Morn" (1905)
Ah, Gentle One! with patient eyes,
I've waited long to catch one gleam
Of that fair morn of hazeless skies,
When we might stray afield and dream.
To wander free beyond the line,
Where town and country, failing, meet,
Till far behind us fail and pine,
The long lights of the narrow street.
So oft when morn from dewy bed
Arose with rosy cheeks aglow,
Within my heart of Love I said:
"There lifts the day my eyes would know."
Awhile on crag and peak, a light
Would burn, and flood the gentle slope,
And ere my heart could catch delight,
That dawn, at birth, had died like Hope.
One morn, when at my vigils I,
You came with subtle eyes to plead,
When hopes have failed and dark the sky
To grant Love's words a better meed.
Your words are soft and soothing, Sweet;
In my dark heart beget was born,
At Love's birth-hour, with twilight fleet,
That longed-for, higher-lifting Morn.
Published in Colored American Magazine, June 1905