Mount, child of morning, mount and sing,
And gaily beat thy fluttering wing,
And sound thy shrill alarms;
Bathed in the fountains of the dew,
Thy sense is keen, thy joys are new;
The wide world opens to thy view,
And spreads its earliest charms.

Far showered around, the hill, the plain,
Catch the glad impulse of thy strain,
And fling their veil aside;
While warm with hope and rapturous joy
Thy thrilling lay rings cheerily,
Love swells its notes, and liberty,
And youth’s exulting pride.

Thy little bosom knows no ill,
No gloomy thought, no wayward will:
'Tis sunshine all, and ease.
Like thy own plumes along the sky,
Thy tranquil days glide smoothly by;
No track behind them as they fly
Proclaims departed peace.

'Twas thus my earliest hopes aspired,
’Twas thus, with youthful ardour fired,
I vainly thought to soar;
To snatch from fate the dazzling prize
Beyond the beam of vulgar eyes.
—Alas! th’ unbidden sigh will rise:
Those days shall dawn no more.

How glorious rose life’s morning star!
In bright procession round her car
How danced the heavenly train!
Truth beckoned from her radiant throne,
And Fame held high her starry crown,
While Hope and Love looked smiling down,
Nor bade my toils be vain.

Too soon the fond illusion passed;—
Too gay, too bright, too pure to last,
It melted from my gaze.
And, narrowing with each coming year,
Life’s onward path grew dark and drear,
While pride forbade, the starting tear
Would fall o’er happier days.

Still o’er my soul, though changed and dead,
One lingering, doubtful beam is shed,
One ray not yet withdrawn;
And still that twilight soft and dear,
That tells of friends and former cheer,
Half makes me fain to linger here,
Half hope a second dawn.

Sing on! sing on! What heart so cold,
When such a tale of joy is told,
But needs must sympathize?
As from some cherub of the sky
I hail thy morning melody.
—Oh, could I mount with thee on high
And share thy ecstasies!

The morning breaks like a pomegranate
In a shining crack of red,
Ah, when to-morrow the dawn comes late
Whitening across the bed,
It will find me watching at the marriage gate
And waiting while light is shed
On him who is sleeping satiate,
With a sunk, abandoned head.

And when the dawn comes creeping in,
Cautiously I shall raise
Myself to watch the morning win
My first of days,
As it shows him sleeping a sleep he got
Of me, as under my gaze,
He grows distinct, and I see his hot
Face freed of the wavering blaze.

Then I shall know which image of God
My man is made toward,
And I shall know my bitter rod
Or my rich reward.
And I shall know the stamp and worth
Of the coin I’ve accepted as mine,
Shall see an image of heaven or of earth
On his minted metal shine.

Yea and I long to see him sleep
In my power utterly,
I long to know what I have to keep,
I long to see
My love, that spinning coin, laid still
And plain at the side of me,
For me to count—for I know he will
Greatly enrichen me.

And then he will be mine, he will lie
In my power utterly,
Opening his value plain to my eye
He will sleep of me.
He will lie negligent, resign
His all to me, and I
Shall watch the dawn light up for me
This sleeping wealth of mine.

And I shall watch the wan light shine
On his sleep that is filled of me,
On his brow where the wisps of fond hair twine
So truthfully,
On his lips where the light breaths come and go
Naïve and winsomely,
On his limbs that I shall weep to know
Lie under my mastery.