Song - "Sweet comes the morning"

[Image: One of Lady Clementina Hawarden's lovely daughters, photographed around 1860]

Sweet comes the morning,

In natures adorning,

And bright shines the dew, on the buds o' the thorn,

Where Mary Ann rambles,

Through sloe trees, and brambles,

She's sweeter than wild flowers that open at morn;

She's a rose i' the dew love,

Nothing's sweeter than true love,

She's as gay as the poppy, that grows in the corn.

Her eyes they are bright love,

Her bosom's snow white love,

And her voice is like songs o' the birds in the grove:

She's handsome, and bonny,

And fairer than onny,

And her person and actions, are natures, and love,

She has the bloom o' a' roses,

She is the breath o' sweet posies,

She's a' pure as the brood i' the nest o' the dove.

O' earths fairest daughters,

Voiced like falling waters,

She walks down the meadows, than blossoms more fair,

Oh her bosom, right fair is,

And her rose cheek, so rare is,

And parted, and lovely, her glossy black hair:

Her bosom's soft whiteness,

 The sun in its brightness,

 Has never been seen, so bewitchingly fair.

The dewy grass glitters,

The house swallow twitters,

And through the sky floats, in its visions o' bliss,

The lark soars on high,

On cowslips the dews lie,

And the best day's o' summer, are nothing like this:

When Mary Ann rambles,

Th[r]oug[h] hedge rows, and brambles,

The soft gales o' Spring are the seasons o' bliss.

LP II 916 (Knight transcript)