ODE TO SPRING.
Hail, gentle Spring! whose genial pow’r
Calls to new life each fragrant flow’r,
In richest tints array’d:
Whose balmy breath revives each scene,
The shady grove, the daisied green
In verdant beauty clad.
At thy approach the feather’d trains
Renew their long neglected strains;
Sweet music floats around;
Whist list’ning Echo’s busy tongue
Repeats the burden of each song,
In faint imperfect sound.
Thy presence prompts the lab’ring swain
To give, with equal hand, the grain
To the kind fost’ring soil:
Mild suns autumnal shall mature
The golden crop, in happy hour
To recompense his toil.
The mute sojourners of the brook
Had long their wonted paths forsook,
Cramp’d by stern Winter’s reign;
But, rouz’d by thy revising beam,
Again they gambol in the stream,
And skim the glassy plain.
Ah! short-liv’d joys! The angler keen
Shall soon to sorrow change the scene,
With the deceptive fly;
The speckled rovers seize the bait,
And swallow unsuspected fate;
They flounce, they gasp, they die.
Thy healing hand destroys disease;
Thy breath brings health in every breeze;
Before thee agues fly:
Thou giv’st each heart with joy to glow,
All blood in brisker streams to flow;
Health laughs in every eye.
What tribute, then, shall mortals bring,
To offer to the genial Spring?
What trophies shall we raise?
With grateful sons, at least, let’s try
To waft her praises to the sky,
In loud accordant lays.