Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern American Poetry. 1919.
Charles Erskine Scott Wood18521944Sunrise
T
Slips to his rocky fastnesses,
Jack-rabbits noiselessly shuttle among the sage-brush,
And from the castellated cliffs,
Rock-ravens launch their proud black sails upon the day.
The wild horses troop back to their pastures.
Orioles, whose nests sway in the cotton-wood trees by the ditch-side, begin to twitter.
All shy things, breathless, watch
The thin white skirts of dawn,
The dancer of the sky,
Who trips daintily down the mountain-side
Emptying her crystal chalice.…
And a red-bird, dipped in sunrise, cracks from a poplar’s top
His exultant whip above a silver world.