WELCOME TO SPRING.
No. 6.
Spring is coming! longed-for spring
Now his joy discloses;
On his fair brow in a ring
Bloom empurpled roses!
Birds are gay; how sweet their lay!
Tuneful is the measure;
The wild wood grows green again,
Songsters change our winter's pain
To a mirthful pleasure.
Now let young men gather flowers,
On their foreheads bind them,
Maidens pluck them from the bowers,
Then, when they have twined them,
Breathe perfume from bud and bloom,
Where young love reposes,
And into the meadows so
All together laughing go,
Crowned with ruddy roses.
Here again the nightingale's song, contending with the young man's heart's lament of love, makes itself heard.
THE LOVER AND THE NIGHTINGALE.
No. 7.
These hours of spring are jolly;
Maidens, be gay!
Shake off dull melancholy,
Ye lads, to-day!
Oh! all abloom am I!
It is a maiden love that makes me sigh,
A new, new love it is wherewith I die!