Sunrise

The lean coyote, prowler of the night, 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. The poplar-trees watch beside the irrigation-ditches. 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.