DAWN

                                  BY

                           H. RIDER HAGGARD


                                 1884



             "Our natures languish incomplete;
              Something obtuse in this our star
              Shackles the spirit's winged feet;
              But a glory moves us from afar,
              And we know that we are strong and fleet."
                                            Edmund Ollier.



        "Once more I behold the face of her
         Whose actions all had the character
         Of an inexpressible charm, expressed;
         Whose movements flowed from a centre of rest,
         And whose rest was that of a swallow, rife
         With the instinct of reposing life;
         Whose mirth had a sadness all the while
         It sparkled and laughed, and whose sadness lay
         In the heaven of such a crystal smile
         That you longed to travel the self-same way
         To the brightness of sorrow. For round her breathed
         A grace like that of the general air,
         Which softens the sharp extremes of things,
         And connects by its subtle, invisible stair
         The lowest and the highest. She interwreathed
         Her mortal obscureness with so much light
         Of the world unrisen, that angel's wings
         Could hardly have given her greater right
         To float in the winds of the Infinity."
                                        Edmund Ollier.