Dawn Study No. 3

I really did write three "Dawn Studies." I don't know if I numbered them in the order I wrote them. This is another one of my poems that I set to music once upon a time, as a choir piece. I may have written the words in high school, but the music I definitely wrote in college (sophomore year to be exact). So this dates from 1992-93 at the latest.

Comes the dawn on slippered feet,
Toe-dipping the yellow cupped ripples
On the naked lake.

Cricket’s lovestruck nocturne ended,
Cries the cockerel at receding night—
Crying at the break of light.

All wakes gently, cool and calm,
First songbird tittering at drowsy comrades,
“See who wakes first!”

Upthrown light slants in through blinds,
Creeping through the dimming dark
Till tickling my eyes it wakes me.