University of Virginia Library

BRIGHTEST SPRING.

Brightest Spring, thou'rt here again,
And Nature drops her Winter's chain;
The world seems young and fresh once more,
Creation doth thy smile adore!
Beautiful thou art! and thou
Makest our world as beauteous now;
Golden lights are in the skies,
On the Earth ten thousand dyes,
Fair the Sun in Heaven's vault shines,
And as though the Earth's golden mines
All were o'er her surface spread,
She the splendour overhead—
Doth as lustrously reflect,
And an equal pomp affect!
Brightest Spring, thou'rt here again,
The world now drops its winter's chain,
It is free and glad once more,
And with beauty running o'er;
Oh! enchanted time and dear,
Spring for ever welcome here!
Hark! it is the warbling thrush,
Quick his notes of rapture gush!
Listen! 'tis the gladsome lark,
Hence! away with care and cark!
Look! Oh transport to the view,
'Tis the violet bursting through!
Pause!—feel'st thou the velvet sod?
Soft as ever fairies trod;
Mark—is not that odorous breath
Wafted from Spring's new-pleached wreath?
Oh! thou brightest season smile
O'er field and rock and mount and isle,
O'er Earth and air, o'er sea and shore—
For the ocean's purple floor
Wins a more enchanting hue,
A deeper and diviner blue,
When thy steps of lightness pass
O'er it—making it thy glass,
(Worthy of thy radiant form
When untroubled by the storm—
And thou bid'st the storm away—
To await a darker day;)
While the grateful Ocean flings
O'er thy many-coloured wings
Its bright waters—like a charm,
Thee with mightier power to arm,
Every drop hath freshening power
To improve thy lustrous hour;
And o'er all the smiling land,
Where thou tak'st thy happy stand,
From his treasury is shed
Freshness, beauty, widely spread;
The air too richly overflows
With tints and treasures of the Rose!—
Up its golden labyrinths run
My strong thoughts! unto the Sun!
Whence this lovely thing is born
That doth all the scene adorn,
Bask in his unbounded blaze
Twine yourselves 'mid his rich rays!
All the air is flushed and filled
With those beams that deepening gild
Day by day the enkindling Earth,
Wakening from her wintery dearth?
Spring! the world at thy sweet call
Startles from its gloomy thrall,
Rises up as from the tomb
In a glory of young bloom—
Should not this remind all men
How themselves will rise again
From the dark and frozen grave
The yet unopened world-wide cave?
Where unknown, unseen, remain
Bound in more than icy chain,
Myriads, upon myriads heaped
Heaven's vast harvest yet unreaped—
Spring! more precious far than thine
Through thy treasures brightly shine,
Are the treasures deeply laid
In the Grave's far-reaching shade—
They that there await the hour
Which shall call them forth in power
From the darkness of the tomb,
To put on immortal bloom—
Spring! thy beauty makes me glad,
Should thy lessons make me sad?
No! that beauty is as nought
To the hopes that thou hast brought!