University of Virginia Library

TO SPRING.

Life glowing season! odour-breathing Spring!
Deck'd in cerulean splendours, vivid, warm,
Shedding soft lustre on the rosy hours,
And calling forth their beauties! Balmy Spring!
To thee the vegetating world begins
To pay fresh homage. Ev'ry southern gale
Whispers thy coming; every tepid show'r
Revivifies thy charms. The mountain breeze
Wafts th' ethereal essence to the vale,
While the low vale returns its fragrant hoard
With ten-fold sweetness. When the dawn unfolds
Its purple splendours 'mid the dappled clouds,
Thy influence chears the soul. When noon uplifts
Its burning canopy, spreading the plain
Of Heav'n's own radiance with one vast of light,
Thou smil'st triumphant! Ev'ry little flow'r
Seems to exult in thee, delicious Spring,
Luxuriant nurse of Nature! By the stream
That winds its swift course down the mountain's side,
Thy progeny are seen,—young Primroses,
And all the varying buds of wildest birth,
Dotting the green slope gaily. On the thorn
Which arms the hedge-row, the young birds invite
With merry minstrelsy, shrilly and maz'd
With winding cadences; now quick, now sunk
In the low twitter'd song. The ev'ning sky
Reddens the distant main, catching the sail
Which slowly lessens, and with crimson hue
Varying the sea-green wave; while the young Moon,
Scarce visible amid the warmer tints
Of western splendours, slowly lifts her brow,
Modest and icy-lustred! O'er the plain
The light dews rise, sprinkling the thistle's head,
And hanging in clear drops on the wild waste
Of broomy fragrance. Season of delight!
Thou soul-expanding pow'r, whose wond'rous glow
Can bid all Nature smile!—Ah! why to me
Come unregarded, undelighting still
This ever-mourning bosom? So I've seen
The sweetest flow'rets bind the icy urn,
The brightest sun-beams glitter on the grave,
And the soft zephyr kiss the troublous main
With whisper'd murmurs. Yes, to me, O Spring!
Thou com'st unwelcom'd by a smile of joy;
To me! slow with'ring to that silent grave,
Where all is blank and dreary. Yet once more
The Spring eternal of the soul shall dawn,
Unvisited by clouds, by storms, by change,
Radiant and unexhausted! Then, ye buds,
Ye plumy minstrels, and ye balmy gales,
Adorn your little hour, and give your joys
To bless the fond world-loving traveller,
Who smiling measures the long flow'ry path
That leads to Death! For to such wand'rers
Life is a busy, pleasing, chearful dream,
And the last hour unwelcome. Not to me,
O! not to me, stern Death, art thou a foe:
Thou art the welcome messenger that brings
A passport to a blest and long repose!