UPON PHILLIS WALKING IN A MORNING BEFORE SUN-RISING by JOHN CLEVELAND

THE sluggish morn as yet undressed,
My Phillis brake from out her East,
As if she'd made a match to run
With Venus, usher to the sun.
The trees, like yeomen of her guard,
Serving more for pomp than ward,
Ranked on each side, with loyal duty
Weave branches to enclose her beauty.
The plants, whose luxury was lopped,
Or age with crutches underpropped,
Whose wooden carcasses are grown
To be but coffins of their own,
Revive, and at her general dole
Each receives his ancient soul.
The winged choristers began
To chirp their mattins, and the fan
Of whistling winds like organs played,
Until their voluntaries made
The wakened Earth in odours rise
To be her morning sacrifice.
The flowers, called out of their beds,
Start and raise up their drowsy heads;
And he that for their colour seeks
May find it vaulting in her cheeks,
Where roses mix -- no civil war
Between her York and Lancaster.
The marigold (whose courtier's face
Echoes the sun and doth unlace
Her at his rise -- at his full stop
Packs and shuts up her gaudy shop)
Mistakes her cue and doth display:
Thus Phillis antedates the day.
These miracles had cramped the sun,
Who, thinking that his kingdom's won,
Powders with light his frizzled locks
To see what saint his lustre mocks.
The trembling leaves through which he played,
Dappling the walk with light and shade
Like lattice-windows, give the spy
Room but to peep with half an eye;
Lest her full orb his sight should dim
And bid us all good-night in him,
Till she should spend a gentle ray
To force us a new-fashioned day.
But what religious palsy's this
Which makes the boughs divest their bliss,
And, that they might her footsteps straw,
Drop their leaves with shivering awe?
Phillis perceived and (lest her stay
Should wed October unto May,
And, as her beauty caused a Spring,
Devotion might an Autumn bring)
Withdrew her beams, yet made no night,
But left the sun her curate-light.

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