Classic Poem

The candid morn already lifts on high
her peaceful brow; already the eastern sky
is flooded with resplendency of rays
that lights up the whole countenance of heaven.

As if dismayed the shadows fly away
to the opposing verge. I seem to feel
our globe, that even now was as though held
suspended in the heavy hand of night,
turn on its massy axles. In an instant
the world entire is astream with joy.

Pleasurable spectacle! What eyes,
what breast can contemplate the blessed day
and not be moved by its miraculous light?
Already in the air a freshness stirs,
restoring with its animating breath
all the beings that beautify the earth.
The amber of the flowers already wafts
its sweetness to the atmosphere; and all
the plants in the green valley are revived
by the pervasive sap that permeates
the secret channels of their dainty veins.
The whole of fertile nature, joyously,
rises in gladness, lovely to behold,
and seems awaked by an invisible hand
that it may enter on its offices.
The voices of the innocent singing birds
echo and echo again among the hills;
a whisper rustles through the leafy groves
and, frolicking, the murmurous rivulet
gurgles gleefully o'er its pebbly bed.

Among the fields what salutary hours
are those that come with the first morning light,
bringing fresh vigour to the languid limbs,
those hours that in their downy beds the pale
and ailing citizens let slip away!
All things quicken in the soul a zest
that unto grand and lofty meditation
elevates it with mysterious urge.
All things are imprinted with the mark
of their eternal Maker. Every being,
each one according to his fashion, seems
to praise the bountiful creating hand.

In lively motion everything is set:
each artless one of them that sojourn here
begins his labours with the break of day.
Following her flock of snowy sheep
the gentle shepherdess makes joyful play,
tressing a garland that she beautifies
with various flowers for her candid brow.
The neatherd manages his crowding kine
that scatter on the pretty common land:
the robust ploughman gets him ready for
the cultivation of the fertile soil.

I go to the cornfield that Providence
assigns to me with his invisible hand:
I shall endure the ardent sun; yet glad
with the abundant seasonable grain
given me by the furrows that I tend,
assuaged the heat of evening, I shall turn
my steps towards my enviable cot,
abode of peace and haven of delights,
where my beloved spouse, with open arms,
already waits for me. My little ones,
greeting me with many a joyous frolick,
will hang about my neck: and verily
mine then will be the semblance of the tree
bowed down beneath the sweetest clusters of all.

And shall I then give up my cottage home,
confined and lowly though it be, to dwell
in sumptuous palace, where a wealthy lord,
resplendent as the sun within its sphere,
treads deep in carpets overlaid with gold?
Never. Nor shall I change this instrument,
however rustic and uncouth it be,
this benefactor that provides me with
my needs in all my life's emergencies,
for the refulgent sceptre that a monarch
wields in his all-powerful right hand.

There is not room within my breast to hold
my joy, nor do I cease to praise at morn
the universal sire of all creation,
whom in that dawning light I contemplate,
nor doing so desist from seeing him
in all his other mighty works besides,
how vast in number, kind and wondrousness!
But none so lovely as the lovely dawn
that seems to quicken all the others, shedding
the light upon them of her countenance.

Oh smile of heaven's face and cheerfulness
of these felicitous pastures! I salute thee,
harbinger of the resplendent sun.
The fresh shades and the verdant champaign land,
the limpid fountains and the balmy zephyrs,
the tender flowers and melodious birds,
salute thee also in their various ways.

Now the whole of nature seems to raise
its lovely face from out the sepulchre.
All its creatures quicken to new life
in the pleasant sweetness of thy presence;
to their deep lairs the savage beasts make haste,
the goats begin to frisk, the sheep to bleat,
the kine to call out to their little calves,
the bulls to bellow and echo to respond,
reverberated by the iterant hills.
The shepherds and the shepherdesses sing
sweet-sounding hymns to the eternal Maker,
who inundates thy glorious countenance
with such glad light to look upon the morn.