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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  May Morn Song

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

May Morn Song

By William Motherwell (1797–1835)

THE GRASS is wet with shining dews,

Their silver bells hang on each tree,

While opening flower and bursting bud

Breathe incense forth unceasingly;

The mavis pipes in greenwood shaw,

The throstle glads the spreading thorn,

And cheerily the blithesome lark

Salutes the rosy face of morn.

’Tis early prime:

And hark! hark! hark!

His merry chime

Chirrups the lark;

Chirrup! chirrup! he heralds in

The jolly sun with matin hymn.

Come, come, my love! and May-dews shake

In pailfuls from each drooping bough;

They’ll give fresh lustre to the bloom

That breaks upon thy young cheek now.

O’er hill and dale, o’er waste and wood,

Aurora’s smiles are streaming free;

With earth it seems brave holiday,

In heaven it looks high jubilee.

And it is right,

For mark, love, mark!

How bathed in light

Chirrups the lark;

Chirrup! chirrup! he upward flies,

Like holy thoughts to cloudless skies.

They lack all heart who cannot feel

The voice of heaven within them thrill,

In summer morn, when mounting high

This merry minstrel sings his fill.

Now let us seek yon bosky dell

Where brightest wild-flowers choose to be,

And where its clear stream murmurs on,

Meet type of our love’s purity.

No witness there,

And o’er us, hark!

High in the air

Chirrups the lark;

Chirrup! chirrup! away soars he,

Bearing to heaven my vows to thee!