Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, 
and by degrees 
the forms and colours of things are restored to them, 
and we watch the dawn 
remaking the world in its antique pattern.
~Oscar Wilde from The Picture of Dorian Gray

Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
~William Wordsworth from “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802”

Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. 
Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.
~Leonora Carrington

Looking for God is the first thing and the last,
but in between so much trouble, so much pain.
~Jane Kenyon from “With the Dog at Sunrise”

In the moments before dawn
when glow gently tints
the inside of horizon’s eyelids,
the black of midnight
wanes to mere shadow,
the fear of night forgotten.

Gloaming dusk transposed to gleaming dawn,
its backlit silhouettes stark
as a dark hurting earth
slowly opens her eyes
to greet a new and glorious morn.