University of Virginia Library

MORNING.

The breeze awakes with morn's first ray,
Like childhood roused from sleep to play;
The sunshine, like a fairy sprite,
Comes to undo the wrong of night;
And earth is jocund with the glee
That swells from hill and vale and tree.
It echoes music fitly set
For mocking-bird and paroquet;
And, joyous as a ransomed soul,
It hears the notes of the oriole.
The murmur of the wide-swept cane
Hymneth the rapture of the plain,
And mingles with the brooklet's song,—
A mirthful brook with fitful gleam,
Hasting to Mississippi's stream,
And glad'ning both its banks along,
Surely, to be mid scenes like this
Doth render like a dream of bliss—
A treasure-store without alloy;—
Here Joy's alive, and Life is joy.
Oh! what a joy it is to him
Who for this scene has left the room
Where sickness, hollow-eyed and grim,
Hath held, for years, its court of gloom,—
Whose shrunken limbs too clearly own
That there the monster had his throne!
They tell not all his tale of woe,—
How friends and brothers from him fled,
And left him to the fever's glow,
The ulcered frame, the throbbing head,
With no defense against the grave
Save this—the care of one poor slave.
That faithful one is by his side;—
What more of bliss can now betide?
What matter that the earth is fair?
What matter that the glad bird's sing?
His pleasure, is that she doth share
The balmy breeze's welcoming.
Her sweet smile is the sunshine bright
That floods the landscape wide with light;
Her gladsome youth the genial morn
That doth his happy day adorn,
And her soft voice the music sweet
With which no warbler can compete.
And now that Life and Hope again
Ope to him paths long closed by pain,—
Now, while her tawny cheek, her eye,
Are bright with modest ecstacy,
The hushed shades of the orange grove
Smilingly hear his tale of love.