ODE TO SPRING.
Sweet daughter of a rough and stormy sire,
Hoar Winter’s blooming child—delightful Spring!
Whose unshorn locks with leaves
And swelling buds are crown’d;
From the green islands of eternal youth,
Crown’d with fresh blooms and ever-springing shade,
Turn, thither turn thy step,
O thou whose powerful voice,
More sweet than softest touch of Doric reed,
Or Lydian flute, can soothe the madding wind,
And through the stormy deep
Breathe thine own tender calm.
Thee, best beloved! the virgin train await
With songs, and festal rites, and joy to rove
Thy blooming wilds among,
And vales and dewy lawns,
With untired feet; and cull thy earliest sweets
To weave fresh garlands for the glowing brow
Of him, the favored youth,
That prompts their whispered sigh.
Unlock thy copious stores—those tender showers
That drop their sweetness on the infant buds;
And silent dews that swell
The milky ear’s green stem,
And feed the flowering osier’s early shoots;
And call those winds which through the whispering boughs
With warm and pleasant breath
Salute the blowing flowers.
Now let me sit beneath the whitening thorn,
And mark thy spreading tints steal o’er the dale;
And watch with patient eye,
Thy fair, unfolding charms.
O nymph, approach! while yet the temperate sun
With bashful forehead through the cold, moist air,
Throws his young maiden beams,
And with chaste kisses woos
The earth’s fair bosom; while the streaming vail
Of lucid clouds, with kind and frequent shade
Protects thy modest blooms
From his severer blaze.
Sweet is thy reign, but short; the red dog-star
Shall scorch thy tresses; and the mower’s scythe
Thy greens, thy flowerets all,
Remorseless shall destroy,
Reluctant shall I bid thee then farewell;
For O, not all that Autumn’s lap contains
Nor Summer’s ruddiest fruits
Can aught for thee atone,
Fair Spring! whose simplest promise more delights
Than all their largest wealth, and through the heart
Each joy and new-born hope
With softest influence breathes.
Anne Letitia Barbauld, 1743–1825.