THE glowing Morning, crowned with youthful roses,
Bursts on the world, in virgin sweetness smiling;
And as she treads, the waking flowers expand,
Shaking their dewy tresses. Nature's choir
Of untaught minstrels blend their various powers.
In one grand anthem, emulous to salute
Th' approaching king of day; and vernal Hope
Jocund trips forth to meet the healthful breeze,
To mark th' expanding bud, the kindling sky,
And join the general pæan..
While, like a matron, who has long since done
With the gay scenes of life; whose children all
Have sunk before her on the lap of earth;
Upon whose mild, expressive face the sun.
Has left a smile, that tells of former joys;
Grey Eve walks forth, in pensive silence musing..
As the mind triumphs o'er the sinking frame;
So, as her form decays, her starry beams
Shed bright'ning lustre, till on Night's still bosom
Serene she sinks, and gently dies away:
While on the rising breeze sad melodies
(Sweet as the notes that soothe the dying pillow,, When angel music calls the saint to heaven) Come gently floating :-'tis the requiem
Chaunted by Philomel for day departed.
BORNE on the earliest sunbeam, hither bring
Thy woodland wreath, soul-renovating Spring!
The wild wave from its icy prison flows,
And vernal winds have chased the northern snows:
Night has her clouds in even balance hung
O'er all creation's face, and bright-wing'd Day
From pole to pole diffused an equal ray,
And pealing gusts old Winter's knell have rung.
Then linger not, thou soft, enchanting Spring!
Thee Nature wooes her shattered lyre to string,
Where late the polar gale,
With sadly-solemn wail,
Deep murmuring, shook his snowy-feathered wing;
And Echo, wildly starting from her cave;
On the infuriate blast did madly rave.
Oh! look not thus uncertain through the gloom
Of skies, yet weeping o'er the savage wreck
Of the rude North; but haste thy bowers to deck,
And scatter blossoms on pale Winter's tomb!
Thou com'st, but with a languid grace:
O'er the beauties of thy face
The snow-drop sheds her melancholy hues :
Thy tresses yet are hung with frosted dews;
And every breeze that wanders in thy train,
Shakes from her heavy wing the dropping rain.
But soon shall blushing May appear,
Loveliest daughter of the Year,
Blooming garlands to renew,
And on thy leafy altars strew:
Sweetest airs shall sigh around,
Of gentlest breath, of softest sound;
Flowers of intermingling dyes
Under thy magic footsteps rise,
On thy bosom soft expand,
And drop renascent from thy hand.
Ah me! to think so fair a form must fade!
To think thy lilied sceptre soon must fall,
And thine own roses deck thy funeral,
And nought remain but thy remembered shade!—
Sweet fugitive! in thee I seem to trace
The sad vicissitude that marks our years;
Gilded by happiness, or shower'd with tears:
And when sometimes an opening flower appears,
Soon does some scattering blast the blossom chase.
YET, if the soft, complaining string
Be hushed at thy return, O Spring,
Thy coming still delay:
What warbler of the woodland choir
Can match the music of the lyre!
What sweet of blushing May
Vie with the lovely flowers the female Muse
Culls from Parnassian fields, and o'er thine altar strews!
As the fond parent for a while
Checks sweet Forgiveness' nascent smile,
Pleased still to hear Affection duteous plead;
Thus, by thine absence, still prolong,
Nor seem to smile upon the song,
Which so melodious mourns thy tardy speed: Though at thy smile the wintry blast depart, The lyre can melt the soul, can animate the heart.
Say, can the glittering things,
Of which Hope fondly sings,
Inspire with equal pleasure, when possest;
As can Hope's angel tongue,
With softest music hung,
Her fairy tales, and dreams of promised rest?— Thus could I listen to the voice of song, Content to hope for spring, nor think the winter long.
THROUGH forest paths, o'erstrewed with rustling leaves,
October comes, to deck the fading year;
And of its spoil a varied chaplet weaves,
Erelong to hang on pallid Autumn's bier.
The dew-drop on his brow congeals;
His golden locks the wood-blast steals;
The scattering wind his chequer'd mantle rends,
And o'er his form the tempest-cloud impends,
Pale are the flowers that thinly plant his way;
The gelid drops o'ercharge their closing bells;
Their tissued wardrobe falls in quick decay;
And nightly cold their blushing grace dispels.
Their drooping heads the frost-star gems;
The whirlwind shakes their pensile stems:
Their transient bloom they shortly must resign,
And with their relics mark the year's decline.
The purple-vested Morn her hour delays,
And lingering seems with doubtful mien to rise;
Gold-sceptred Day a shorten'd visit pays,
And Night with raven crest usurps the skies.
With early beam, the vesper star
Flames on Twilight's misty car;
And swiftly to the chambers of the West,
The crimson-curtained Evening sinks to rest.
In wizard forms the dusky vapours float,
And veil the woodlands in their dim disguise;
The Robiu trills his solitary note,
And tunes in warbling plaint his elegies:
The orphan beauties of the year
In melancholy train appear;
Pay their last mournful tribute to its shade,
And o'er its desolated ruins fade.
For soon the wheels of Winter's icy car
Shall crush these fragments of the shatter'd year;
Ev'n now, his hollow murmurs, from afar,
Proclaim the fury of his empire drear.
The echoing blast, his herald, blows;
His meteor torch blue-tinctur'd glows;
For Nature's sleep he weaves a snowy vest,
And soon shall rock her languid frame to rest.
The curl'd leaf, flitting on the blast,
The moaning gale, the shadowy sky,
Denote the Sun's dominion past,
And shades of northern darkness nigh:
For Sirius gems the zone of night,
And, clad in giant armour bright,
Orion, Winter's sentinel, ascends,
And o'er the sleeping world his watchful fight suspends.
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