THE NORTHERN SPRING.
When the soft breath of Spring goes forth
Far o’er the mountains of the North,
How soon those wastes of dazzling snow
With life, and bloom, and beauty glow!
Then bursts the verdure of the plains,
Then break the streams from icy chains;
And the glad reindeer seeks no more
Amidst deep snows his mossy store.
Then the dark pine-wood’s boughs are seen
Fringed tenderly with living green;
And roses, in their brightest dyes,
By Lapland’s founts and lakes arise.
Thus, in a moment, from the gloom
And the cold fetters of the tomb,
Thus shall the blest Redeemer’s voice
Call forth his servants to rejoice.
For He, whose word is truth, hath said,
His power to life shall wake the dead,
And summon those he loves on high,
To “put on immortality!”
Then, all its transient sufferings o’er,
On wings of light the soul shall soar,
Exulting, to that blest abode
Where tears of sorrow never flow’d.
Early in the year 1834, the little volume of Hymns for Childhood (which, though written many years before, had never been published in England) was brought out by Messrs Curry of Dublin, who were also the publishers of the National Lyrics, which appeared in a collected form about the same time. Of the latter, Mrs Hemans thus wrote to her friend Mrs Lawrence, in the note which accompanied the volume:—“I think you will love my little book, though it contains but the broken music of a troubled heart—for all the hours it will recall to you beam fresh and bright as ever in my memory, though I have passed through but too many of sad and deep excitement since that period.”—Memoir, p. 269.]