Viewing page 42 of 84

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

74    POEMS OF

The morn awakes, and wide extends her rays,
On ev'ry lead 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.

HYMN TO THE EVENING.

Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main,
The pealing thunder shook the heavenly plain;
Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr's wing,
Exhales the incense of the blooming spring.
Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes,
And through the air their mingled music floats.

Through all the heavens what beauteous dyes are spread,
But the west. glories in the deepest red:


PHILLIS WHEATLEY.    75

So may our breasts with ev'ry virtue glow,
The living temples of our God below!

Filled with the praise of him who gives the light,
And draws the sable curtains of the night,
Let placid slumbers soothe each weary mind,
At morn to wake, more heavenly, more refined;
So shall the labors of the day begin
More pure, more guarded from the snares of sin.
Night's leaden sceptre seals my drowsy eyes,
Then cease my song, till fair Aurora rise.

ISAIAH, 63d Chap. 1st and 8th verses.

Say, heavenly Muse, what king, or mighty God,
That moves sublime from Idumea's road?
In Bozrah's dyes, with martial glories joined,
His purple vesture waves upon the wind.
Why thus enrobed delights he to appear
In the dread image of the Power of war?
Compressed in wrath, the swelling wine-press groaned;
It bled, and poured the gushing purple round.

"Mine was the act," the Almighty Saviour said,
And shook the dazzling glories of his head;
"When all forsook, I trod the press alone,
"And conquered by omnipotence my own;