In the barn the tenant cock,
Close to partlet perched on high,
Briskly crows (the shepherd’s clock!),
Jocund that the morning's nigh.
Swiftly from the mountain’s brow,
Shadows, nursed by night, retire:
And the peeping sunbeam now
Paints with gold the village spire.
Philomel forsakes the thorn,
Plaintive where she prates at night;
And the lark, to meet the morn,
Soars beyond the shepherd’s sight.
From the low-roofed cottage ridge,
See the chatt’ring swallow spring;
Darting through the one-arched bridge,
Quick she dips her dappled wing.
Now the pine-tree’s waving top
Gently greets the morning gale:
Kidlings now begin to crop
Daisies on the dewy dale.
From the balmy sweets, uncloyed
(Restless till her task be done),
Now the busy bee's employed
Sipping dew before the sun.
Trickling through the creviced rock,
Where the limpid stream distils,
Sweet refreshment waits the flock
When ’tis sun-drove from the hills.
Colin’s for the promised corn
(Ere the harvest hopes are ripe)
Anxious; – whilst the huntsman’s horn,
Boldly sounding, drowns his pipe.
Sweet, O sweet, the warbling throng
On the white emblossomed spray!
Nature’s universal song
Echoes to the rising day.
John Cunningham, 1729-1773 – “Morning” from The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth-Century Verse
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