Phoebus, arise!
And paint the sable skies
With azure, white, and red:
Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's
bed
That she may thy career with roses spread:
The nightingales thy coming eachwhere
sing:
Make an eternal spring!
Give life to this dark world which lieth
dead;
Spread forth thy golden hair
In larger locks than thou wast wont
before,
And emperor-like decore
With diadem of pearl thy temples fair:
Chase hence the ugly night
Which serves but to make dear thy glorious
light.
—This is that happy morn,
That day, long wishéd day
Of all my life so dark,
(If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn
And fates not hope betray),
Which, purely white, deserves
An everlasting diamond should it mark.
This is the morn should bring unto this
grove
My Love, to hear and recompense my love.
Fair King, who all preserves,
But show thy blushing beams,
And thou two sweeter eyes
Shalt see than those which by Penéus'
streams
Did once thy heart surprize.
Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise:
If that ye winds would hear
A voice surpassing far Amphion's lyre,
Your furious chiding stay;
Let Zephyr only breathe
And with her tresses play.
—The
winds all silent are,
And Phoebus in his chair
Ensaffroning sea and air
Makes vanish every star:
Night like a drunkard reels
Beyond the hills, to shun his flaming
wheels:
The fields with flowers are deck'd in
every hue,
The clouds with orient gold spangle their
blue;
Here is the pleasant place—
And nothing wanting is, save She, alas.
WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.
