University of Virginia Library

Loved occupations! blameless, calm delights!
Your relish has not palled upon my sense;
I taste ye with as keen enjoyment still
As in my childish days; with zeal as warm,
More temperate, less impatient, still I tend
My flowery charge, with interest unimpaired
Watching the tender germ and swelling bud,
Pruning the weak or too luxuriant shoot,
And timely propping with assiduous care
The slender stalks with heavy blossoms bowed.
I will not tell how lately and how oft
In dreams I've wandered 'mongst the blooming tribes,
Continuing thus in sleep the pleasing task,
My summer evening's toil. I will not tell
How lately, stealing forth on moonless night,
I've sought by lantern light the dewy buds
Of peeping larkspur, searching 'mong the leaves
For nightly spoilers, from the soft light earth
That issue forth to feed on the young plant,
Their favourite dainty. No, I will not tell,
Lest wisdom laugh to scorn such puerile cares
In age mature, how lately they've been mine.
The gladness! the unspeakable deep joy!
When Nature, putting off her russet stole
Of wintry sadness, decks herself afresh
In bloom and beauty, like a virgin bride.
With lovely coyness, shrinkingly she comes;
For oft in clouds, and mist, and arrowy sleet,
The sun, her bridegroom, veils his glorious face,
And on his setting hour too often hangs
The breath of lingering frosts, repelling long
All but the hardiest children of the spring.
Of these, the earliest pursuivants, appear,
Studding the brown earth with their golden stars,
The clustering aconites, a pigmy race,
Fearless of wintry blast, whose fiercest rage
Passes innocuous o'er their lowly bed.
But soon through every border the moist earth
Breaks up its even surface, every clod
Expands and heaves with vegetable life;
And tender cones of palest green appear,
The future hyacinths, and arrowy points
Of bolder crocus; and the bashful heads
Of snowdrops, trembling on their slender stalks;
And next, of many hues, hepaticas,
The red, the milk-white, and the lovelier blue—
A vegetable amethyst!—come forth,
The impatient blossoms bursting into sight
Before the tardier leaves; but those at length
Expand their outward circle, fencing round
With its broad fringe the tufted bloom within.
But Winter oft, tenacious of his sway,
Enviously lingers on the skirts of Spring,
Binds up in frozen chains the stubborn soil,
Nips the young leaf, and checks the tender germ.
In such ungenial seasons oft I've watched
Week after week, and shivered at the sight,
Beneath some shelving bank or garden wall
Long wreaths of snow, that on the border mould,
In drifted thickness heaped, continuous lie.
Elsewhere divested of that livery pale,
The cold Earth reassumes her natural hues,
And slow returning verdure: but in vain
To the stiff surface heave the tender heads
Of budding flowers, or if they struggle through,
Deep in their sheltering leaves concealed they lie.