SPRING.
Oh, how delightful to the soul of man,
How like a renovating spirit comes,
Fanning his cheek, the breath of infant Spring!
Morning awakens in the orient sky
With purpler light, beneath a canopy
Of lovely clouds, their edges tipped with gold;
And from his palace, like a deity,
Darting his lustrous eye from pole to pole,
The glorious sun comes forth, the vernal sky
To walk rejoicing. To the bitter north
Retire wild winter’s forces—cruel winds—
And griping frosts—and magazines of snow—
And deluging tempests. O’er the moisten’d fields
A tender green is spread; the bladed grass
Shoots forth exuberant; th’ awakening trees,
Thawed by the delicate atmosphere, put forth
Expanding buds; while, with mellifluous throat,
The warm ebullience of internal joy,
The birds hymn forth a song of gratitude
To him who sheltered, when the storms were deep,
And fed them through the winter’s cheerless gloom.
Beside the garden path, the crocus now
Puts forth its head to woo the genial breeze,
And finds the snowdrop, hardier visitant,
Already basking in the solar ray.
Upon the brook the water-cresses float
More greenly, and the bordering reeds exalt
Higher their speary summits. Joyously,
From stone to stone, the ouzel flits along,
Startling the linnet from the hawthorn bough;
While on the elm-tree, overshadowing deep
The low-roofed cottage white, the blackbird sits
Cheerily hymning the awakened year.
Turn to the ocean—how the scene is changed.
Behold the small waves melt upon the shore
With chastened murmur! Buoyantly on high
The sea-gulls ride, weaving a sportive dance,
And turning to the sun their snowy plumes.
With shrilly pipe, from headland or from cape,
Emerge the line of plovers, o’er the sands
Fast sweeping; while to inland marsh the hern,
With undulating wing scarce visible,
Far up the azure concave journies on!
Upon the sapphire deep, its sails unfurl’d,
Tardily glides along the fisher’s boat,
Its shadow moving o’er the moveless tide;
The bright wave flashes from the rower’s oar,
Glittering in the sun, at measured intervals;
And, casually borne, the fisher’s voice,
Floats solemnly along the watery waste;
The shepherd boy, enveloped in his plaid,
On the green bank, with blooming furze o’ertopped,
Listens, and answers with responsive note.