University of Virginia Library

SPRING.

—Song of Solomon, chap. II.

Every year, all the periodicals, in every city, in
every country of the earth, have something to say
upon the subject of spring, and have had something
to say since time was, or at least, since periodicals
were born, and will continue to have something to
say until time shall cease to be. It is, in all respects,
a most prolific theme, and there is no more
chance of exhausting it, than of exhausting our
kind mother earth of grass, leaves, and flowers,
and the never-dying vegetative principle. The
reason is obvious enough: last year's grass, and
leaves, and flowers are dead and past away—their
freshness and fragrance are forgotten, and their
beauty is remembered no more; so it is with the
essays, reflections, songs, and sonnets that sprang
into life in the spring of eighteen hundred and

twenty-nine—they also have passed away, and
their sweet thoughts and pretty sayings are likewise
remembered no more; but as last year's vegetation
fell to the earth and became incorporated
with it only to be reproduced again in forms of
fresh brilliancy and beauty, so do the thoughts and
images of former writers assume a new shape, and
bear the impress of the present time by appearing
in all magazines and newspapers, daily, weekly,
and monthly, for the year eighteen hundred and
thirty. And there is no plagiarism in all this; it
is merely, as Puff says, “two people happening to
think of the same idea, only one hit upon it before
the other—that's all.” Indeed, who would think
of plagiarism on such an exhaustless subject as
spring? Why a thousand thoughts and images
that have lain dormant in the mind start into life
at the mere mention of the word. As the fresh
April breeze, laden with healthful fragrance, blows
upon you, it becomes a sort of natural impulse to
vent your feelings either by pen or speech. You
look back upon the snow, and fog, and sharp unfeeling
winds of winter as upon a desolate waste
over which you have trodden, and fancy, as you
see nature putting on her youthful gay attire, that
you are entering into another and better state of
existence; forgetful that though her spring may be
eternal, your own is flitting fast away, never to be
renewed. But no reflections! let them come with
winter, their fitting season. Spring was made for
enjoyment, or rather, anticipation of enjoyment—
promises of good—pleasant visions, and gorgeous
castles in the air. Experience convinces not the
young. They think not of their last year's visions
that have faded away, nor the aerial castles that
have tumbled about their ears; or if they do, it is
only to contrast their frailty with the firm texture
and sure foundation of those in the perspective. But
though spring be delightful to all classes, it is so to
each in a different way, and for a different reason.
In the country, your true agriculturist, though he
wander amid a wilderness of sweets, marks not the
tiny buds that are expanding and blooming into
beauty all around—to be sure, he hopes that no
killing frost will come and spoil his prospects of
cider, but that is all. These are too small concerns
for his capacious head. He ponders on acres of
corn and fields of buck-wheat, and plans where
barley should be sown and where oats. He looks
into futurity and calculates how much the yet unengendered
grain will bring; he schemes how his
barren land may be artificially fertilized in the best
and cheapest manner, and it is his business, not his
pleasure, to take note of the wonderful operations
of nature. His wife considereth the dairy, and
looketh out with motherly care that her sleek and
velvet-coated cows be not turned from their winter
quarters into damp and swampy meadows, lest
they contract colds, coughs, catarrhs, and other disorders
incident to cattle; while the rosy-cheeked
daughter attends to the poultry, (always the daughter's
perquisite) and literally “reckons her chickens
before they are hatched.” Anxiously does she
watch that the young turkeys (the most tender of
domestic fowls) do not get wet feet; for on the proceeds
arising from their sale depend the splendor of
the gown and the quantity and quality of the ribbon
that have in summer to adorn the village
church, and excite the wonder and admiration of
its simple congregation. So passes spring with
them and others of their class. They talk and
think less of its beauties than those who merely get
glimpses of them in crowded cities, and have to
draw upon their imagination for the rest.

In the city spring brings with it a still more multifarious
collection of hopeful schemes and projects.
Business that has been in a state of stagnation during
the winter now flows briskly through a thousand
different channels; and the ladies, whose business
is pleasure, are busier than any one else, for
the spring fashions have come; milliners are now

the most obsequious of people; tailors examine with
a curious eye the coats of their customers as they
meet them in the streets, and inquire most kindly
and disinterestedly after their health and prospects;
merchants are scattering their ventures abroad, ships
are fitting out, much beef is salted down, and many
biscuits baked, but a number of hard things said
about the tariff notwithstanding; the North river
is emancipated from ice, and owners of steamboats
are preparing to oblige the public and ruin themselves
by vigorous competition; the rustling of silks
is heard in Broadway, criticisms upon hats, gowns,
and trimmings are much in vogue amongst the
fair creatures who pace its fashionable side, and
they look upon spring as the most charming season
of the year, “it is so delightful for morning
calls.”

Spring is coming! all good things are coming!
and some good things are going—oysters are going
—there will soon be no R in the month, and then
they are gone; but shad are coming; strawberries
and pretty country girls are coming, so is fresh
butter; the men of Rochester and Buffalo, and
other districts of the “far west” have come, and
they wander up and down the streets in “wrapt
amazement” at the never ceasing jingling of forte-pianos,
and the twanging of guitars, harps, and

other stringed instruments; the sons of the South
have come, and Virginians, Carolinians, and Georgians
are to be seen sauntering along, and gazing
with horror at the shocking quantity of freedom
enjoyed by the poor black wretches whom they
chance to meet, and though they see it every summer,
they are never able to get over the astonishment
created by beholding a dark dandy or an
African coquette—as if white people possessed the
exclusive right to make fools of themselves. “Ah!”
think they, as a colored gentleman unceremoniously
takes the wall of them—“Ah! if I only had you
in Savannah!”

But spring has still its sad feelings, and after levity
comes heaviness of heart. It is a joyous season
to those who, like the year, are in their springtime,
just bursting into untried life; but to such as
have seen that time pass away for ever, whose spirits
are depressed by difficulties, or broken by unavailing
struggles, it is a season rather of melancholy
retrospection than present enjoyment. The aged
or unfortunate are insensible to its influence; they
recall their spring, and mournfully contrast the
happy past with the dreary present; truly is it
said,

and deeply do they feel its truth. To those in their
prime it is, at times, perhaps sadder still to look
back upon the flowery fields of existence through
which they have been rambling, and to contrast
them with the beaten track they now tread, and
the desolate prospect that lies before them. The
friends of their youth have passed away, so have
their brightest hopes; they feel themselves changed,
and their capacities for happiness diminished; they
see things full of joy and promise around, and are
filled with a mixture of wordly scorn and unavailing
regret for what can no more be theirs; and
sadly do they enter into the feelings of the poet—