THE TOAST TO A FUTURE DAY
I have climbed to the highest point of the mountain to drink a toast to a future day,—to a new day, to one that will come,—perhaps it will succeed this very night. To the highest point of the mountain, in this cup of ice that it lifts to the very lips of Aurora! I have stripped and rushed into it. It is so full that, when I enter, the water overflows like a cataract. I dance in the ebullition of the source like a grape-seed in a glass of champagne. I cannot distinguish this gushing basin in which I splash from the whirlpool of air separated from me by a narrow brink. Far below me circles the clamorous eagle. Beautiful Aurora, like a shaft thou art sped here from the sea below among the islands! Drink! that I may feel the quivering of thy insatiate lip as deep as the submerged plants to which I sink. Let the sun rise! that I may see the light shadow of my suspended body painted beneath me on the sand of this basin ringed with the seven-colored rainbow.