From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed,
Anemones; auriculas, enriched
With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves;
And full ranunculus, of glowing red.
Then comes the tulip race, where Beauty plays
Her idle freaks; from family diffused
To family, as flies the father-dust,
The varied colours run; and while they break
On the charmed eye, th' exulting florist marks,
With secret pride, the wonders of his hand.
No gradual bloom is wanting from the bud,
First-born of Spring, to Summer's musky tribes;
Nor hyacinths of purest virgin white,
Low-bent, and blushing inward; nor jonquils—
Of potent fragrance; nor Narcissus fair,
As o'er the fabled fountain hanging still;
Nor broad carnations, nor gay-spotted pinks;
Nor, showered from every bush, the damask rose.
Infinite numbers, delicacies, smells,
With hues on hues expression cannot paint,
The breath of Nature, and her endless bloom!
Up springs the lark,
Shrill-voiced and loud, the messenger of Morn;
Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings
Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts
Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse
Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush
Bending with the dewy moisture, o'er the heads
Of the coy choristers that lodge within,
Are prodigal of harmony. The thrush
And woodlark, o'er the kind contending throng
Superior heard, run through the sweetest length
Of notes; when listening Philomela deigns
To let them joy, and purposes, in thought
Elate, to make her night excel their day.
The blackbird whistles from the thorny brake;
The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove;
Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowering furze
Poured out profusely, silent. Joined to these,
Innumerous songsters, in the freshening shade
Of new-sprung leaves, their modulation mix
Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw,
And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone,
Aid the full concert; while the stock-dove breathes
A melancholy murmur through the whole.
OW smiling wakes the verdant year,
Arrayed in velvet green!
How glad the circling fields appear,
That bound the blooming scene!
Forth walks from heaven the beaming Spring,
Calm as the dew she sheds;
And o'er the Winter's muttering king
Her veil of roses spreads.
The sky serene, the waking flowers,
The river's loosened wave,
Repay the kind and tepid hours
With all the charms they gave.
And hark! from yon melodious grove
The feathered warblers break;
And into notes of joy and love
The solitude awake!
And shall the first beloved of heaven
Mute listen as they sing;
Shall man to whom the lyre is given,
Not wake one tuneful string?
O let me join the aspiring lay,
That gives my Maker praise;
Join, but in louder notes than they,
Than all their pleasures raise !
From stormy Winter hoar and chill
Warm scenes of peace arise:
For ever thus from seeming ill
Heaven every good supplies.
For see, 'tis mildness, beauty, all
Around the laughing whole;
And nature's verdant charms recall
The mildness of the soul.
O Thou, from whose all-gracious eye
The sun of splendour beams;
Whose glories every ray supply,
That gilds the trembling streams;
O'er nature's green and teeming fields
Bid flowery graces rise;
And every sweet creation yields,
Salute the morning skies.
Where yonder moves the plough of toil Along the stubborn land,
O kindly lift the yielding soil,
And soothe the labouring hand.
Thence bid gay Fruitfulness around
Her blooming reign extend;
And where thy richest gifts are found,
Tell who the heavenly friend.
As with her smiles life's weary vale
Is gentler trod below;
With thine the closing home we hail,
That shuts us in from woe!
Till that celestial home is ours,
Let us its Lord implore,
Content may cheer our pilgrim hours,
And guide us to the door.
39OW pleasant is the opening year! The clouds of winter melt away; The flowers in beauty re-appear; The songster carols from the spray. Lengthens the more refulgent day;
And bluer grows the arching sky; All things around us seem to say,
Christian, direct thy thoughts on high !
In darkness, through the dreary length
Of winter, slept both bud and bloom;
But nature now puts off her strength,
And starts renewed, as from the tomb;
Behold an emblem of thy doom,
O man! a star hath shone to save-
And morning yet shall re-illume
The midnight darkness of the grave!
Yet ponder well how then shall break
The dawn of second life on thee-
Shalt thou to hope, to bliss awake?
Or vainly strive God's wrath to flee?
Then shall pass forth the dread decree,
That makes or weal or woe thine own; Up and to work! Eternity
Must reap the harvest Time has sown!
ARCH! how mild thy genial hours,
Soft azure skies, and gilded showers,
um The blaze of lights, the deepening shade,
Tints that flush the cloud, and fade;
Now the young wheat's transient gleam,
Where sunlight, chasing shadows, stream;
Now, in quick effulgence seen,
On yonder slope, its sparkling green :
And sprinkled o'er the mossy mould,
Crocuses, like drops of gold,
And the lent-lily's paler yellow,
Where flower the asp and water-willow;
And the polyanthus, fair
Its hues, as bathed in summer air;
And the white violets, that just peep,
And sheltered by the rosemary sleep;
Bursting lilacs, and beneath
Currant buds that freshly breathe
The first spring-scent, light gooseberry leaves,
With which the obtrusive ivy weaves
Its verdure dark (this day, though late
Cut off to meet a cruel fate),
The cherry too, that purpling glows,
And, full of leaf, the hedgerow rose ;
On this south wall, the peach-bloom pale,
Where huddles many a clustering snail;
And round the trunk of yon hoar tree,
Here and there a humming bee
That wanders to the sunny nook,
Or seeks, hard by, the glittering brook;
The blackbirds trill, and every lay
That, warbling wild-love, dies away;
And on each ash and elm's grey crest,
Cawing rooks, that frame the nest
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