• 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.