University of Virginia Library

Now, darting through green leaves, and bringing flowers,
Fresh blooming, borrow'd from a thousand bowers
Where nature fills her lap with fruits, and gleams
The carpet of the prairies, stars and streams,—
Comes forth, all wantoning in joyous dreams,
With eye that laughs in beauty, golden hair,
Curling and floating o'er a neck as fair
As the young moon, when in the dusky vale
She lifts her virgin crescent, soft and pale,—
The flush'd and revelling Summer. At her glance
Sinks the old wizard, Winter, into trance;
No more the mighty potentate, who shook
His icy sceptre over field and brook,
But, tottering into apathy, that goes,
Soulless and sad, to polar home of snows;
The realm usurp'd made glad in his decline,
Made free to bourgeon in its flower and vine;
The steel-bound waters rescued where he lay,
And leaping, flashing, to the smiles of day,
With all their little billows out at play;—
Birds gladsome singing round the cottage tree,
And hope and heart, for once, at liberty,
Mingling in joyous anthems which make air
All musical with love, that might be prayer.

Give the heart freedom! Let the soul take wing
With the soft promise of the golden Spring;
From book and study, forth;—uplift the eye
To the blue beauties in the morning sky;
Forget that Toil hath had his task decreed,
The daily labor, for the daily need;
Give Hope new charm in respite from its chain,
Thought fresher impulse in unlaboring brain;
No duty rules that Drudgery shall not find
Some moments grateful to the unfetter'd mind;
The heart's sweet Sabbath must not be denied,
Now, when boon Nature smiles on all beside!
Where the winds play,—where great green branches wave,
And lilies softly lapse upon the wave,—
Forth with the Sun, with heart that sings within,
In sense of joy that hath no taint of sin;
A song of Summer born, that feels, instinct,
How near with Earth the soul of man is link'd,
And thus through earth with heaven, that still foreshows,
In bright, sweet symbols, how the future glows,
How freshly, gladsomely, and purely Bliss
May yet, in man's true life, atone for this!

Spirits of holiest gift have been at range,
O'er stream and forest, to effect this change;—
What potent spells, what breath of balm, they brought,
By which the magic of this birth was wrought;—
How did they whisper on the bankside, where
Lurk'd all the hooded flowers, in shame and fear;
Hush'd through long months of winter, while the sway
Of that cold tyrant threaten'd still his prey,
'Till that warm whisper to the clod which hid,
Brought each sweet virgin to unclose her lid,
And won the nun-like daisy from her cell,
In sweet obedience to the grateful spell,—
Blessing the shrine that shelter'd her so well!
What legions of bright angels, far and wide,
Have sped, that earth should waken up in pride;
A single breath, one short sweet night—the moon
Of April only watching through its noon—
And, with the dawn, how wondrous was the show
That hail'd the sun from thousand plains below;
With song,—though faint, how sweet!—and scents so rare,
As if the flowers were wedded to the air,
That nothing did but drink of the delight,
With wings diffused in never-resting flight,
As conscious, in the rapture of such taste,
Of no fatigue, in all that world of waste.

Oh! with a range as wide as his, we speed
To each fair empire of the newly freed;
With hearts as free as any of the race,
That glow and gladden in the sun's embrace.
How spreads the various picture as we go!
Hills greenly stretch aloft, and vales below;
The mountain wears no more the brow of age,
And nature flies her gloomy hermitage,
Now desolate no longer,—to abide,
With birds and blossoms, by the brooklet's side;
How prattle the glad waters, as she brings,
Her gayest buds to nurture at their springs;
Pleased with the song of kindred, which declares
Her joy in these, and all her beauties theirs!
Banks, on each side, slope down with fringe of green,
To kiss the silvery waves that sing between,
Sing with fit chant to the cathedral trees,
Through which, still sleepless, trolls the thoughtless breeze,
With music most like that of swarming bees!

The song is still an echo to the toil,—
The heart is tutor'd when the sinews moil;
Mere song were something vicious,—but the strain
That tells of solace for the limbs and brain—
Which call for respite for due service done,
In fields of meet succession with the sun,—
This brings a healthful nurture, and, if right
The duty done, we look for the delight.
The charm that still beguiles us at the close
Of the day-labor, freshening its repose,
Is the sweet nourishment for strength anew,
The future toil, or conquest, to pursue.
Thus sings the earth at seasons,—thus we hear
The bird and insect joyous far and near;
A choral hymn the nation's toil preludes,
And the glad creature frolics ere it broods.
Full of a sweet and wise intelligence,
Not simply fashion'd for the idiot's sense,
The voices that we hear from plain and grove,
They speak in gladness, for they breathe of love;
And love is the great duty which implies
Toil for the drudge and study for the wise;
Both earnest ever in the fond pursuit,
That, in the very tillage, finds the fruit!
Earth has a labor in her womb below!—
The watchful ear may catch the murmuring flow
Of mingling strifes and sounds,—the strifes of toil,
Of those who sing and serve, for those who moil.
The mighty mother, with mysterious art,
Hath fashion'd well each agent in her mart;
Various in product, as in office, still,
Each, without murmur, follows at her will;
No void unfill'd beneath her searching eye,
No realm unwatch'd, of water, earth, or sky;—
There runs the lizard o'er the freshest flowers,
As death gives shadow to our sunniest hours;—
There, the gay butterfly, on varied wing,
Pursues the insect that it cannot sting;—
There goes the coiling serpent, with raised crest,
And warning rattle, to his slimy nest,—
Vex'd by pursuit he slowly wins his way,
Nor seems unwilling to prolong his stay,—
Too closely press'd he would not shun the strife,
And he who takes, must battle for, his life.

Turn where the dove,—meet contrast!—with his mate
Just won, delighted with his new estate,
Lingers beside the path a fearless thing,
Nor claims the succor of his idle wing.
Nature endows him with the season's sense,
Where all is breathing hope and confidence,—
And, heedful of her interest, man decrees
His safety from the fowler. Thus we seize
Our sweetest lessons of preserving good,
From the dumb nature and unthinking mood,—
For it were base to wrong the faith implied,
Which seeks our steps, nor hurries once aside,
Though life is dearer now, so full of love,
And fear is the first instinct of the dove!