University of Virginia Library

Pictorial Emblems for the Seasons.

LXXI. WINTER DREAR AND CHILL, BUT WITHAL MERRY AND FREE.

Had I the wondrous magic to invest
Ideal forms in colour, I would paint
Thee, Winter, first, by an age withered saint
Deep in his beads: on his bare ribs should rest
A cross of lichened boughs; and duly prest
Each morn by horny knees, one for each bone,
There should be two round hollows in the stone,
Whither his bent limbs should be half addrest.
And in the entry of the holy cave
Where the same saint should sit, a laughing boy,
Naked, and all aglow with play and joy,
Should peer full slily on that father grave,
In the full blessedness of childhood's morn,
And laugh his crusty solitude to scorn.

LXXII. SPRING, WHEN YOUNG FLOWERS PEEP, BUT THE FROST NIPPETH KEEN.

Spring should be drest in emblem quaint and shy;
A troop of rosy girls escaped from bed
For very wantonness of play, should tread
The garden-paths; one tucks her night-robe high,
The dewy freshness of the lawn to try;
Some have been bolder, and unclothed and bright
The group is seen in the moon's mellow light;
Some, scattered, gaze upon the trees and sky.
But there should be that turn with hurried glance
Beckoning their playmates, where by a side-path
Between the shrubs is seen to half-advance
The moody widow lodger; who in wrath
Is sure to scatter all their stealthy play,
And they will rue it ere the break of day.

LXXIII. SUMMER, WHEN THE PRIME IS REACHED, BUT THERE ARE TOKENS OF DECAY.

For Summer I would paint a married pair
Sitting in close embraces, while a band
Of children kneel before them hand in hand;
Healthful their cheeks, and from their mantling hair,
Well-knit and clear, their downward limbs are bare;
His hand is past over her neck, and prest
In pride of love upon her full ripe breast;
And yet his brow is delved with lines of care,
And in her shining eye one truant tear
Stands, ready to be shed:—a quiet scene,
But not without perchance intruding fear
That never comes again what once hath been;
And recollection that our fondest toil
But weaves a texture for the world to soil.

LXXIV. AUTUMN, WHOSE FRUITS ENDURE, THOUGH DEATH IS ON IT.

Autumn should be a youth wasted and wan,
A flush upon his cheek, and in his eye
Unhealthful fire; and there should sit hard by
She that best loves him, ever and anon
Wistfully looking, and for pleasures gone
(So would I paint her) she should seem to sigh;
The while some slender task her fingers ply,
Veiling the dread that trusts him not alone.
But he, high-wrapt in divine poesy,
Unrolls the treasures of creative art,
Spells framing for the world's unheeding heart;
His very eye should speak, and you should see
That love will brighten as his frame decays,
And song not fail but with his failing days.