THE BLACK COCK, WRITTEN FOR A WELCH AIR, CALLED “THE NOTE OF THE BLACK COCK.” Joanna Baillie Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Baillie, Joanna, 1762-1851. Fugitive Verses. By Joanna Baillie, author of “Dramas on the Passions,“ etc. London Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXL. 1840 pp. 362-363.

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THE BLACK COCK , WRITTEN FOR A WELCH AIR , CALLED “ THE NOTE OF THE BLACK COCK . ” GOOD morrow to thy sable beak , And glossy plumage , dark and sleek , Thy crimson moon and azure eye , Cock of the heath , so wildly shy ! I see thee , slily cowering , through That wiry web of silver dew , That twinkles in the morning air , Like easement of my lady fair . A maid there is in yonder tower , Who , peeping from her early bower , Half shews , like thee , with simple wile , Her braided hair and morning smile . The rarest things with wayward will , Beneath the covert hide them still : The rarest things to light of day Look shortly forth , and shrink away . One fleeting moment of delight , I sunned me in her cheering sight ; And short , I ween , the term will be , That I shall parley hold with thee . Through Snowdon's mist red beams the day ; The climbing herdboy chaunts his lay ; The gnat-flies dance their sunny ring ; Thou art already on the wing .