Spring.
This period of the year is so awakening to intellectual powers, that for a few days some matters of fact are occasionally deferred in favour of imaginative and descriptive effusions occasioned by the season.
The Poet’s Pen.
(From the Greek of Menecrates.)
I was an useless reed; no cluster hung
My brow with purple grapes, no blossom flung
The coronet of crimson on my stem;
No apple blushed upon me, nor (the gem
Of flowers) the violet strewed the yellow heath
Around my feet, nor Jessamine’s sweet wreath
Robed me in silver: day and night I pined
On the lone moor, and shiver’d in the wind.
At length a poet found me. From my side
He smoothed the pale and withered leaves, and dyed
My lips in Helicon. From that high hour
I SPOKE! My words were flame and living power,
All the wide wonders of the earth were mine,
Far as the surges roll, or sunbeams shine;
Deep as earth’s bosom hides the emerald;
High as the hills with thunder clouds are pall’d.
And there was sweetness round me, that the dew
Had never wet so sweet on violet’s blue.
To me the mighty sceptre was a wand,
The roar of nations peal’d at my command;
To me the dungeon, sword, and scourge were vain,
I smote the smiter, and I broke the chain;
Or tow’ring o’er them all, without a plume,
I pierced the purple air, the tempest’s gloom,
Till blaz’d th’ Olympian glories on my eye,
Stars, temples, thrones, and gods—infinity.
Pulci