MORNING WALK.
The morning hath not lost her virgin blush,
Nor step, but mine, soil’d the earth’s tinsel’d robe.
How full of Heaven this solitude appears—
This healthful comfort of the happy swain,
Who from his hard but peaceful bed roused up,
In morning’s exercise saluted is
By a full choir of feather’d choristers,
Wedding their notes to the enamor’d air!
There Nature, in her unaffected dress,
Plaited with valleys, and emboss’d with hills,
Enlaced with silver streams, and fring’d with woods,
Sits lovely in her native russet.
William Chamberlayne, 1619–1689.