LINES.
Sweetly breathing vernal air,
That with kind warmth doth repair
Winter’s ruins; from whose breast
All the gums and spice of th’ East
Borrow their perfumes; whose eye
Gilds the morn and clears the sky;
Whose disshevel’d tresses shed
Pearls upon the violet-bed;
On whose brow, with calm smiles drest,
The halcyon sits and builds her nest;
Beauty, youth, and endless spring,
Dwell upon thy rosy wing!
Thou, if stormy Boreas throws
Down whole forests when he blows,
With a pregnant, flowery birth,
Canst refresh the teeming earth;
If he nip the early bud;
If he blast what’s fair and good;
If he scatter our choice flowers;
If he shake our halls and bowers;
If his rude breath threaten us,
Thou canst strike great Æolus,
And from him the grace obtain,
To bind him in an iron chain.
Thomas Carew, about 1600.
