The Cockerel, the Bird of Dawn, is no arbitrary choice for Aurora's carriage: it was a symbol familiar to the poets and philosophers of the Renaissance. As even in the darkness before dawn there is somethings in the bird that responds to the imminent sunrise, so the soul also contains a seed or glance of light, descending from the first Light, which guides in trough its own dark night to a heavenly dawn.

Cock-crowing

Father of lights! What Sunnie seed
What glance of day hast Thou confin'd
Into this bird? To all the breed
This busie Ray Thou hast assign'd;
     Their magnetism works all night,
     And dreams of Paradise and light.

Their eyes watch for the morning hue,
Their little grain expelling night
So shines and sings, as if it knew
The path unto the house of light,
     It seems their candle, howe'r done,
     Was tinn'd and lighted at the sunne.

If joyes, and hopes, and earnest throes,
And hearts, whose Pulse beats still for light
Are given to birds; who, but Thee, knows
A love-sick soul's exalted flight?
     Can souls be track'd to any eye
     But his, who gave them wings to fly?

Extract from 'Cock-crowning', by Henry Vaughan, 1655