Morning on Shinnecock

BY OLIVIA WARD BUSH-BANKS 
The rising sun had crowned the hills,
           And added beauty to the plain;
O grand and wondrous spectacle!
           That only nature could explain.

I stood within a leafy grove,
           And gazed around in blissful awe;
The sky appeared one mass of blue,
           That seemed to spread from sea to shore.

Far as the human eye could see,
           Were stretched the fields of waving corn.
Soft on my ear the warbling birds
           Were heralding the birth of morn.

While here and there a cottage quaint
           Seemed to repose in quiet ease
Amid the trees, whose leaflets waved
           And fluttered in the passing breeze.

O morning hour! so dear thy joy,
           And how I longed for thee to last;
But e’en thy fading into day
           Brought me an echo of the past.

          ‘Twas this,—how fair my life began; 
           How pleasant was its hour of dawn;
But, merging into sorrow’s day,
           Then beauty faded with the morn.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 23, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. 

     Ward Bush-Banks, Olivia. “Morning on Shinnecock.” Academy of American Poets, https://poets.org/poem/morning-shinnecock.