Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley/Hymn to the Morning
HYMN TO THE MORNING
Attend my lays, ye ever honored Nine,
Assist my labors, and my strains refine;
In smoothest numbers pour the notes along.
For bright Aurora now demands my song.
Aurora hail! and all the thousand dies
Which deck thy progress through the vaulted skies
The morn awakes, and wide extends her rays,
On ev'ry leaf the gentle zephyr plays;
Harmonious lays the feathered race resume,
Dart the bright eye, and shake the painted plume.
Ye shady groves, your verdant bloom display,
To shield your poet from the burning day:
Calliope, awake the sacred lyre,
While thy fair sisters fan the pleasing fire.
The bowers, the gales, the variegated skies,
In all their pleasures in my bosom rise.
See in the east, the illustrious king of day!
His rising radiance drives the shades away—
But oh! I feel his fervid beams too strong,
And scarce begun, concludes the abortive song.