Chapter I: Morning

The quickening Day climbs to one star,
That, cradled, rocks itself in morn;
Whose airy opal, flaming far,
Makes fire of the mountain tarn.
The hosts of morning storm the sky
With streaming splendor, their bright lips
Blow laughter wild that shakes the rye,
And, from the bough, the dew that drips
On Oriana walking by.

The calling rooks swarm round the towers:
A heron sweeps through deeps of glare:
And Falconry among the bowers
Whistles his falcon down the air:
While in the woods the bugled Hunt,
With bearded cheeks, blows wild a-mort
As dies the boar; or, front to front,
Upon the baying hounds, the hart
Turns, antlering at the battle's brunt.

The heath-cock, stout amid his dames,
Upon the purple-heathered hill,
With glossy coat the morn enflames,
Sounds to his rivals challenge shrill.
Where, tossing white its plume of foam,
The fountain leaps and twinkles by,
Embodying dawn and all its bloom,
My Oriana draweth nigh,
Sweet as the heath-bell's wild perfume.

The mountain tarn is like a cloud
Of fallen and reflecting blue;
In azure deeps the larks are loud,
The larks that soar through dawn and dew.
A wild-swan, mirrored in the mere,
Moves with its image breast to breast--
As our two souls as one appear
When to my heart her heart is pressed,
The heart of Oriana here.