How Dear to Me the Hour

How dear to me the hour when daylight springs,
And sheds new glories on the opening view,
When westward far the towering mountain flings
His shadow, fringed with rainbows on the dew,
And the love-waken'd lark enraptured springs
To heaven's own gate, his carols to renew !

In every flowering shrub then life is new,
As opening on the sun its gladsome eye;
So is life's morning — blithely we pursue
Hope's gilded rainbow of the heavenly dye,
Till worn and weary we our travel rue,
And in life's cheerless gloaming yearn and die !