HENRT KIEKE WHITE's TOEMS. 



TO THE MORNING. 



Written durivg Illness. 



Beams of the daybreak faint ! I hail 

 Your dubious hues, as on the robe 

 Of night, which wraps the slumbering globe, 



I mark your traces pale, 

 Tir'd with the taper's sickly light, 

 And with the wearying, numbered night, 

 I hail the streaks of morn divine : 

 And lo ! they break between the dewy wreathes 



That round my rural casement twine ; 

 The fresh gale o'er the green lawn breathes, 

 It fans my feverish brow, — it calms the mental strife, 

 And cheerily re-illumes the lambent flame of life. 



The Lark has her gay song begun, 



She leaves her grassy nest, 

 And soars till the unrisen sun 



Gleams on her speckled breast, 

 Now let me leave my restless bed, 

 And o'er the spangled uplands tread ; 



Now through the custom'd wood-walk wend ; 

 By many a green lane lies ray way, 



"Where high o'er head the wild briers bend, 



Till on the mountain's summit gray, 

 I sit me down, and mark the glorious dawn of day. 



Oh, Heaven ! the soft refreshing gale 



It breathes into my breast, 

 My sunk eye gleams, my cheek so pale, 



Is with new colours drest. 

 Blithe Health ! thou soul of life and ease ! 

 Come thou, too, on the balmy breeze, 



