The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their stations;

The grave is burst, the spices shed, the linen wrapped up;

The bones of death, the cov'ring clay the sinews shrunk & dry'd

Reviving shake, inspiring move, breathing, awakening,

Spring like redeemed captives when their bonds & bars are burst.

Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field,

Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in the bright air;

Let the inchained soul, shut up in darkness and in sighing,

Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years,

Rise and look out; his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open;

And let his wife and children return from the oppressor's scourge.

They look behind at every step & believe it is a dream,

Singing: "The Sun has let his blackness & has found a fresher morning,

And the fair Moon rejoices in the clear & cloudless night;

For Empire is no more, and now the Lion & Wolf shall cease."

-- from "America: A Prophecy" by William Blake

O stars,

isn't it from you that the lover's desire for the face

of his beloved arises? Doesn't his secret insight

into her pure features come from pure constellations?

-- from "The Third Elegy" by Ranier Maria Rilke

Fine vapors escape from whatever is doing the living.

The night is cold and delicate and full of angels

Pounding down the living. The factories are all lit up,

The chime goes unheard.

We are together at last, though far apart.

-- from "The Ecclesiast" by John Ashbery