- 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.