“Here I am—why this senseless fear?

Soon now the day will come, and night will fade.

Listen: you can hear the shepherd’s horns, and there,

Look how the stars pale, over a trace of red.

The path is straight, we’re almost to the clearing.

Down in the village, the first bell chimes,

And roosters on fences have started crowing.

The sleepy earth, fertile and happy, steams.

Here it is still dark, and you see fog pour

In black swirls over the huckleberry knolls.

But dawn on bright stilts wades in from the shore,

And the ball of sun is ringing as it rolls.”