Christopher John Brennan

Here you will find the Poem White dawn, that tak'st the heaven with sweet surprise of poet Christopher John Brennan

White dawn, that tak'st the heaven with sweet surprise

White dawn, that tak'st the heaven with sweet surprise 
of amorous artifice, 
art thou the bearer of my perfect hour 
divine, untrod, 
from some forgotten window of Paradise 
by mighty winds of God 
blown down the world, before my haunted eyes 
at length to flower? 
Nay, virgin dawn, yet art thou all too known, 
too crowded light 
to take my boundless hour of flaming peace: 
thou common dayspring cease; 
and be there only night, the only night, 
more than all other lone: 
be the sole secret world 
one rose unfurl'd, 
and nought disturb its blossom'd peace intense, 
that fills the living deep beyond all dreams of sense 
enmesh'd in errorous multiplicity: 
? let be 
nought but her coming there: 
what else were fair? 
It asks no golden web, no censer-fire 
to tell the dense incarnate mystery 
where one delight is wed with one desire. 
No leaves bestrow 
that passage to the rose of all fulfill'd delight; 
no silver trumpets blow 
majestic rite, 
but silence that is sigh'd from faery lands, 
or wraps the feet of Beauty where she treads 
dim fields of fading stars, 
be round our meeting heads, 
and seeking hands:
draw near, ye heavens, and be our chamber-bars; 
and thou, maternal heart of holy night, 
close watch, what hush'd and sacramental tide 
a soul goes forth wide-eyed, 
to meet the archangel-sword of loneliest delight