| |
| LET Taylor preach, upon a morning breezy, | |
| How well to rise while nights and larks are flying— | |
| For my part, getting up seems not so easy | |
| By half as lying. | |
| |
| What if the lark does carol in the sky, | 5 |
| Soaring beyond the sight to find him out,— | |
| Wherefore am I to rise at such a fly? | |
| I ’m not a trout. | |
| |
| Talk not to me of bees and such-like hums, | |
| The smell of sweet herbs at the morning prime,— | 10 |
| Only lie long enough, and bed becomes | |
| A bed of time. | |
| |
| To me Dan Phœbus and his car are naught, | |
| His steeds that paw impatiently about,— | |
| Let them enjoy, say I, as horses ought, | 15 |
| The first turn-out! | |
| |
| Right beautiful the dewy meads appear | |
| Besprinkled by the rosy-fingered girl; | |
| What then,—if I prefer my pillow-beer | |
| To early pearl? | 20 |
| |
| My stomach is not ruled by other men’s, | |
| And, grumbling for a reason, quaintly begs | |
| Wherefore should master rise before the hens | |
| Have laid their eggs? | |
| |
| Why from a comfortable pillow start | 25 |
| To see faint flushes in the east awaken? | |
| A fig, say I, for any streaky part, | |
| Excepting bacon. | |
| |
| An early riser Mr. Gray has drawn, | |
| Who used to haste the dewy grass among, | 30 |
| “To meet the sun upon the upland lawn,”— | |
| Well,—he died young. | |
| |
| With charwomen such early hours agree, | |
| And sweeps that earn betimes their bit and sup; | |
| But I ’m no climbing boy, and need not be | 35 |
| All up,—all up! | |
| |
| So here I lie, my morning calls deferring, | |
| Till something nearer to the stroke of noon;— | |
| A man that ’s fond precociously of stirring | |
| Must be a spoon. | 40 |
| |
