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Poems by the Late Reverend Dr. Thomas Blacklock

Together with an Essay on the Education of the Blind. To Which is Prefixed A New Account of the Life and Writings of the Author

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ODE to AURORA.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


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ODE to AURORA.

On Melissa's Birth-day.

Of Time and Nature eldest born,
Emerge thou rosy-finger'd morn,
Emerge, in purest dress array'd,
And chace from heav'n night's envious shade,
That I once more may, pleas'd, survey,
And hail Melissa's natal day.
Of time and nature eldest born,
Emerge, thou rosy-finger'd morn:
In order at the eastern gate
The Hours to draw thy chariot wait;
Whilst Zephyr, on his balmy wings,
Mild nature's fragrant tribute brings,
With odours sweet to strew thy way,
And grace the bland, revolving day.
But as thou lead'st the radiant sphere,
That gilds its birth, and marks the year,
And as his stronger glories rise,
Diffus'd around th' expanded skies,
Till cloth'd with beams serenely bright,
All heav'n's vast concave flames with light;

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So, when, thro' life's protracted day,
Melissa still pursues her way,
Her virtues with thy splendor vie,
Increasing to the mental eye:
Tho' less conspicuous, not less dear,
Long may they Bion's prospect chear;
So shall his heart no more repine,
Bless'd with her rays, tho' robb'd of thine.