Throned in her emerald car, see Spring appear!
(As Fancy wills, the landscape starts to view.)
Her emerald car the youthful Zephyrs bear,
Fanning her bosom with their pinions blue.
Around the jocund Hours are fluttering seen,
And lo, her rod the rose-lip’d Power extends!
And lo, the lawns are decked in living green,
And Beauty’s bright-eyed train from Heaven descends!
Haste, happy days, and make all Nature glad——
But will all Nature joy at your return?
O, can ye cheer pale Sickness’ gloomy bed,
Or dry the tears that bathe the untimely urn?
Will ye one transient ray of gladness dart,
Where groans the dungeon to the captive’s wail?
To ease tired Disappointment’s bleeding heart,
Will all your stores of softening balm avail!
When stern Oppression, in his harpy fangs,
From Want’s weak grasp the last sad morsel bears,
Can ye allay the dying parent’s pangs,
Whose infant craves relief with fruitless tears?
For ah! thy reign, Oppression, is not past.
Who from the shivering limbs the vestment rends?
Who lays the once rejoicing village waste,
Bursting the ties of lovers and of friends!
But hope not, Muse, vain-glorious as thou art,
With the weak impulse of thy humble strain,
Hope not to soften Pride’s obdurate heart,
When Errol’s bright example shines in vain.
Then cease the theme. Turn, Fancy, turn thine eye,
Thy weeping eye, nor further urge thy flight.
Thy haunts, alas! no gleams of joy supply,
Or transient gleams, that flash and sink in night.
Yet fain the mind its anguish would forego:
Spread, then, Historic Muse, thy pictured scroll;
Bid the great scenes in all their splendour glow,
And rouse to thought sublime the exulting soul.
What mingling pomps rush on the enraptured gaze!
Lo, where the gallant navy rides the deep!
Here, glittering towns their spiry turrets raise,
There, bulwarks overhang the shaggy steep.