VILLEGAS.
I.
Now, Spring the year’s contracted brow
Unknits, and robes in brightest green
The trees; and, victims to the plough,
Fresh flowers are strew’d where snows were seen.
The honours of the time complete,
Come forth, and welcome in the spring,
Which spreads a carpet for thy feet,
A verdant broider’d offering
For thee, whom, honour’d as her queen,
She mourns away, and welcomes seen.
II.
Here in this flowing mirror see,
Worthy of thy reflected face,
Exulting in its waters free,
Charms which art’s rivalry disgrace.
The bygone waters would return,
The waters present stay their course;
The coming waters from their urn
A passage prematurely force;
All jealous, striving to possess
The image of thy loveliness.
III.
Nature is eloquent to teach:
Her lessons do not thou disdain:
The birds, though unendow’d with speech,
Can carol love, in song complain.
Come, seek their school: their love-taught notes
The text of nature will expound;
The thrilling music of their throats
Teach us what bliss in love is found;
And all their pretty wanton ways,
Mutely reprove our dull delays.
MELENDEZ.
CUPID A BUTTERFLY.
Observing once, with secret spite,
The rustic maidens, wild with fright,
Fly from him when his arms he bore,
Revenge the wily Cupid swore;
And straight a stratagem design’d,
For Cupid’s malice is refined.
He seems a butterfly complete,
With down upon his baby feet;
His little arms are changed to wings;
And sportive into air he springs.
Now through the meadows he meanders,
And now from flower to flower he wanders;
Hovers o’er this, on that alights,
Whose honied cup his lip invites.
The maidens think him what he seems,
Not one of aught deceptive dreams,
And eager in the chase they strive:
One stoops to take him up alive,
As on the ground fatigue he feigns;
Again he flies and mocks her pains;
A second calls with accents kind;
Another panting lags behind.
He sees them in the contest warm,
Then starts into his proper form,
And sets their simple hearts on fire,
To gratify his childish ire.
But from that time, in love we see
The butterfly’s inconstancy.
Love tarries not, but onward springs;
Alas! the urchin kept his wings.