To The Morning

Satisfaction for Sleep

WHAT succour can I hope the Muse will send, Whose drowsiness hath wronged the Muse’s friend? What hope, Aurora, to propitiate thee, Unless the Muse sing my apology? O! in that morning of my shame, when I Lay folded up in sleep’s captivity; How at the sight didst thou draw back thine eyes, Into thy modest veil! how didst thou rise Twice dyed in thine own blushes, and didst run To draw the curtains and awake the sun! Who, rousing his illustrious tresses, came, And seeing the loathed object, hid for shame His head in thy fair bosom, and still hides Me from his patronage; I pray, he chides; And, pointing to dull Morpheus, bids me take My own Apollo, try if I can make His Lethe be my Helicon, and see If Morpheus have a Muse to wait on me. Hence ’tis my humble fancy finds no wings, No nimble raptures, starts to heaven and brings Enthusiastic flames, such as can give Marrow to my plump genius, make it live Dressed in the glorious madness of a muse, Whose feet can walk the milky-way, and choose Her starry throne; whose holy heats can warm The grave, and hold up an exalted arm To lift me from my lazy urn, and climb Upon the stooped shoulders of old Time, And trace eternity. But all is dead, All these delicious hopes are buried In the deep wrinkles of his angry brow, Where mercy cannot find them; but, O thou Bright lady of the morn, pity doth lie So warm in thy soft breast, it cannot die; Have mercy, then, and when he next doth rise, O, meet the angry god, invade his eyes, And stroke his radiant cheeks; one timely kiss Will kill his anger, and revive my bliss. So to the treasure of thy pearly dew Thrice will I pay three tears, to show how true My grief is; so my wakeful lay shall knock At the oriental gates, and duly mock The early lark’s shrill orisons to be An anthem at the day’s nativity. And the same rosy-fingered hand of thine, That shuts night’s dying eyes, shall open mine. But thou, faint god of sleep, forget that I Was ever known to be thy votary. No more my pillow shall thine altar be, Nor will I offer any more to thee Myself a melting sacrifice; I’m born Again a fresh child of the buxom morn, Heir of the sun’s first beams; why threat’st thou so? Why dost thou shake thy leaden sceptre? Go, Bestow thy poppy upon wakeful woe, Sickness and sorrow, whose pale lids ne’er know Thy downy finger dwell upon their eyes; Shut in their tears, shut out their miseries.