• With silent awe I hail the sacred morn,
    That slowly wakes while all the fields are still!
    A soothing calm on every breeze is borne;
    A graver murmur gurgles from the rill;
    And echo answers softer from the hill;
    And sweeter sings the linnet from the thorn:
    The skylark warbles in a tone less shrill.
    Hail, light serene! hail, sacred Sabbath...

  • Up! quit thy bower! late wears the hour,
    Long have the rooks cawed round the tower;
    O’er flower and tree loud hums the bee,
    And the wild kid sports merrily.
    The sun is bright, the sky is clear;
    Wake, lady, wake! and hasten here.

    Up, maiden fair! and bind thy hair,
    And rouse thee in the breezy air!
    The lulling stream that soothed...

  • In the barn the tenant cock,
      Close to partlet perched on high,
    Briskly crows (the shepherd’s clock!)
      Jocund that the morning’s nigh.

    Swiftly from the mountain’s brow,
      Shadows, nursed by night, retire:
    And the peeping sunbeam now
      Paints with gold the village spire.

    Philomel forsakes the thorn,
      Plaintive where...

  • From “The Minstrel”
      BUT who the melodies of morn can tell?
      The wild brook babbling down the mountainside;
      The lowing herd; the sheepfold’s simple bell;
      The pipe of early shepherd dim descried
      In the lone valley; echoing far and wide
      The clamorous horn along the cliffs above;
      The hollow murmur of the ocean-tide;
      The...

  • From “The Winter Morning Walk:” “The Task,” Bk. V.

    ’T IS the morning, and the sun with ruddy orb
    Ascending fires the horizon; while the clouds,
    That crowd away before the driving wind,
    More ardent as the disc emerges more,
    Resembles most some city in a blaze,
    Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray
    Slides ineffectual down the...