Table of contents
1. On Morning
The orb of light returns--Aurora waves her hand
To her fair followers--sweetest Flora's2
band.
Her breath is like the odors of a rose,
She from her lips, the fragrant Zephyr4 blows
Her pearly tears, all trickling on the ground
While Echo's6 voice the neighboring hills resound
The linnet chirps, sweet welcome to the morn,
While Ceres8 gathers in the golden corn,
And murmuring waters mingle in the strain
And joy to sing in fair Aurora's train--
She rolls her car, in Heavenly realms above
Where Angels ever, sing their Makers love
Rest sylvan muses, rest your early lay
And close your verse, in thankful, glad array!
2. Note on the text
Decades before EBB decided to name the protagonist of her 1856 novel-in-verse “Aurora Leigh,” Aurora, Greek goddess of the dawn, figures prominently among other powerful female goddesses in her juvenilia, as in this exuberant poem dated 1815. In another, “On the First of May—Mama’s Birthday—1815,” “Aurora sings in her triumphal Car” (see HUPS 1: 86-87, 91-92; also 81, 97).
Notes
6.
Echo
a chattering nymph whom the goddess Hera punished by
limiting her speech to repeating others’ words. Grieving over her
unrequited love for Narcissus (who fell in love with his
own reflection in water), Echo finally faded into nothing
more than echoing sound.
↵Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Date: 04-Mar-2009
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