Conversations introducing poetry :: :: University of Virginia Library

Sweet Violets! from your humble beds
Among the moss, beneath the thorn,
You rear your unprotected heads,
And brave the cold and chearless morn
Of early March; not yet are past
The wintry cloud, the sullen blast,
Which, when your fragrant buds shall blow,
May lay those purple beauties low.

Ah stay awhile, till warmer showers
And brighter suns shall chear the day;
Sweet Violets stay, till hardier flowers
Prepare to meet the lovely May.
Then from your mossy shelter come,
And rival every richer bloom;
For though their colours gayer shine,
Their odours do not equal thine.
And thus real merit still may dare to vie,
With all that wealth bestows, or pageant heraldry.

TO THE SNOW-DROP.

EMILY.

Like pendant flakes of vegetating snow,
The early herald of the infant year,
E'er yet the adventurous Crocus dares to blow
Beneath the orchard boughs, thy buds appear.

While still the cold north-east ungenial lowers,
And scarce the hazle in the leafless copse
Or sallows shew their downy powder'd flowers,
The grass is spangled with thy silver drops.

Yet, when those pallid blossoms shall give place
To countless tribes of richer hue and scent,
Summer's gay blooms, and Autumn's yellow race,
I shall thy pale inodorous bells lament.

So journeying onward in life's varying track,
Even while warm youth its bright illusion lends,
Fond Memory often with regret looks back
To childhood's pleasures, and to infant friends.

102

THE HUMBLE BEE.

Good morrow, gentle humble bee,
You are abroad betimes, I see,
And sportive fly from tree to tree,
To take the air;

And visit each gay flower that blows;
While every bell and bud that glows,
Quite from the daisy to the rose,
Your visits share.

Saluting now the pied carnation,
Now on the aster taking station,
Murmuring your ardent admiration;
Then off you frisk,

Where poppies hang their heavy heads,
Or where the gorgeous sun-flower spreads
For you her luscious golden beds,
On her broad disk.

To live on pleasure's painted wing,
To feed on all the sweets of Spring,
Must be a mighty pleasant thing,
If it would last.

103

But you, no doubt, have wisely thought,
These joys may be too dearly bought,
And will not unprepar'd be caught
When Summer's past.

For soon will fly the laughing hours,
And this delightful waste of flowers
Will shrink before the wintry showers
And winds so keen.

Alas! who then will lend you aid,
If your dry cell be yet unmade,
Nor store of wax and honey laid
In magazine?

Then, Lady Buzz, you will repent,
That hours for useful labour meant
Were so unprofitably spent,
And idly lost.

By cold and hunger keen oppress'd,
Say, will your yellow velvet vest,
Or the fur tippet on your breast,
Shield you from frost?

Ah! haste your winter stock to save,
That snug within your Christmas cave,
When snows fall fast and tempests rave,
You may remain.

104

And the hard season braving there,
On Spring's warm gales you will repair,
Elate thro' chrystal fields of air,
To bliss again!