An Hymn to the Morning

by Phillis Wheatley

An Hymn to the Morning is featured in Wheatley's collection, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), published while she was still a slave. Wheatley was emancipated three years later.

An illustration for the story An Hymn to the Morning by the author Phillis Wheatley — Charles Meynier, Capillope, Muse of Epic Poetry, 1789

ATTEND my lays, ye ever honour'd nine,
  Assist my labours, and my strains refine;
  In smoothest numbers pour the notes along,
  For bright Aurora now demands my song.
    Aurora hail, and all the thousand dies,
  Which deck thy progress through the vaulted skies:
  The morn awakes, and wide extends her rays,
  On ev'ry leaf the gentle zephyr plays;
  Harmonious lays the feather'd race resume,
  Dart the bright eye, and shake the painted plume.
    Ye shady groves, your verdant gloom display
  To shield your poet from the burning day:
  Calliope awake the sacred lyre,
  While thy fair sisters fan the pleasing fire:
  The bow'rs, the gales, the variegated skies
  In all their pleasures in my bosom rise.
    See in the east th' illustrious king of day!
  His rising radiance drives the shades away—
  But Oh! I feel his fervid beams too strong,
  And scarce begun, concludes th' abortive song.

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