Thoughts for an August Morn
By S.T.W.
- Up with the morn and steal a glance around,
- Let sleep be banished from your eyelids now;
- Now range abroad, your pulse will livelier bound,
- And the cool breeze will greatly fan your brow.
- Heaven gave the more to cheer the darkened breast
- Evening for quiet thought, and Night for rest.
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- 'Mid chill December's frosts and mantling snows
- Tis sweet to think of August: why not, when
- In calm magnificence its scenes repose
- Around us! Swift, with ever ready pen
- Doth Nature write her poetry, and we
- Lack only hearts to feel and eyes to see.
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- 'T is true she doth not strike the sounding lyre,
- Nor charm with studied rhymes the listening ear;
- She doth not write, as many bards require,
- In lazy syllables fall soft to hear;
- But from her thousand harps pours many a strain;
- Her pen's a sun-beam and it writeth plain.
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- The dawn with rosy finger streaks the East,
- The clouds are tinged with a bright orange hue,
- And purple lingers in the hooded West,
- Where darkling forests circumscribe the view;
- While banks of mist along the vales recline,
- And round the hills their binding edges twine.
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- On yonder branch beside the cottage door,
- Her song the merry little blue bird sings;
- Melodious notes, so often heard before,
- Ring from the glades and forest openings;
- And many a wood note wild and boding scream,
- Echo from out the groves along the running stream.
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- The rich man's score, the poor man's humble friend,
- In calm Contest with meek and smiling face,
- Her prudent hand the poor man's joys doth send,
- And at his board she sits with modest grace;
- No costly mansion claims her daily care,
- But mark yon cottage by the brook she's there!
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- Pleasure with robe of a resplendent hue
- Lingers with beauty in the rich man's halls,
- And pale satiety goes thither too,
- With pleasure hies to festivals and balls;
- But she's a stranger round the poor man's fire,
- And Pleasure there appears in simple, plain attire.
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- Give me a cottage in the shady grove;
- With health, and competence, and quiet let me dwell;
- Let songsters warble in the boughs above,
- And from the fountain let the brooklet well;
- I'll range o'er hill, o'er dale, by stream, by wood,
- And taste of all on earth that's beautiful and good.
March 4, 1851. New York Daily Tribune 10(3082): 7. Written for the Tribune.