In the Dew of the Morn

Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn,
Come clear of the nets of wrong and right;
Laugh, heart, again in the gray twilight;
Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.
Thy mother Eire is always young,
Dew ever shining and twilight gray,
Though hope fall from thee or love decay
Burning in fires of a slanderous tongue.
Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill,
For there the mystical brotherhood
Of hollow wood and the hilly wood
And the changing moon work out their will.
And God stands winding his lonely horn;
And Time and World are ever in flight,
And love is less kind than the gray twilight,
And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.
— WB Yeats, Into the Twilight

The dew of the morn must be reckoned with. It dampens everything, especially your bottom if you should sit down without wiping the surface dry before you land. But I love it for all that it reminds me of; early morning rows, waking up in a tent in some remote place, the first, wet cleats soccer games of the day for the kids when they were cherubs. That damp start is a new beginning, a hope you can cling to until it dries with the rising sun.

My heart belongs to the morning. For all the grief I get about going to bed early, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I listen to the sounds of the woods as the world wakes up around me and honor Sirius as the last holdout stubbornly fading in a brightening sky. I know we all must fade in our time but why not try for brilliance until the end?

My heart also seeks faraway places, if only to see what’s there when I arrive. Yeats has recurring themes of time and mysticism in his work. Mother Eire is alive with faeries and magic, and he stirs a dormant but not distant longing to visit Ireland soon. Come heart, where hill is heaped upon hill… don’t worry, I’m already there!

Wanderlust is nothing new for me, and I often celebrate it here, but you’ll never be happy in this world chasing your dreams elsewhere. Life is right here, where you are. In the dew of the morn, with the world stirring and a cuppa too soon gone. So dry yourself off and get after it. For there’s magic in the air.