To wake once more to life their native charms.
Ah! ponder well, my soul, th’ instructive scene—
Scarce four short months the circling year has run,
Since blooming nature smil’d a chearful green,
And infant flow’rets drank the early sun.
Thus childhood smiles serene---the spring of life
One fleeting hour---and all its joys are past;---
Youth next, ’tween hope and fear eternal strife,
Like Summer, sunshine now, and now with clouds o’ercast.
Next manhood comes---like Autum comes---is fled,