Lucretius on Spring and the Seasons, translated by Good.
Spring comes, and Venus with fell foot advanced;
Then light-winged Zephyr, harbinger beloved;
Maternal Flora, strewing ere she treads,
For every footstep flowers of choicest hue,
And the glad æther loading with perfumes
Then Heat succeeds, the parched Etesian breeze,
And dust-discoloured Ceres; Autumn then
Follows, and tipsy Bacchus, arm in arm,
And storms and tempests; Eurus roars amain,
And the red south brews thunders; till, at length,
Cold shuts the scene, and Winter’s train prevails,
Snows, hoary Sleet, and Frost, with chattering teeth.
Milton makes the most heavenly clime to consist of an eternal spring:
The birds that quire apply; airs, vernal airs,
Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune
The trembling leaves, while universal Pan,
Knit with the graces, and the hours in dance,
Led on the eternal spring.
From Atherstone’s Last Days of Herculaneum.
Soft tints of sweet May morn, when day’s bright god
Looks smiling from behind delicious mists;
Throwing his slant rays on the glistening grass,
Where ’gainst the rich deep green the Cowslip hangs
His elegant bells of purest gold:—the pale
Sweet perfumed primrose lifts its face to heaven,
Like the full, artless gaze of infancy:—
The little ray-crowned daisy peeps beneath,
When the tall neighbour grass, heavy with dew,
Bows down its head beneath the freshening breeze;
Where oft in long dark lines the waving trees
Throw their soft shadows on the sunny fields;
Where, in the music-breathing hedge, the thorn
And pearly white May blossom, full of sweets,
Hang out the virgin flag of spring, entwined
With dripping honey-suckles, whose sweet breath
Sinks to the heart—recalling, with a sigh,
Dim recollected feelings of the days
Of youth and early love.
From Spring, by Kleist
Who thus, O tulip! thy gay-painted breast
In all the colours of the sun has drest?
Well could I call thee, in thy gaudy pride,
The queen of flowers; but blooming by thy side
Her thousand leaves that beams of love adorn,
Her throne surrounded by protecting thorn,
And smell eternal, form a juster claim,
Which gives the heaven-born rose the lofty name,
Who having slept throughout the wintry storm,
Now through the opening buds displays her smiling form.
Between the leaves the silver whitethorn shows
Its dewy blossoms, pure as mountain snows.
Here the blue hyacinth’s nectareous cell
To my charmed senses gives its cooling smell.
In lowly beds the purple violets bloom,
And liberal shower around their rich perfume.
See, how the peacock stalks yon beds beside,
Where rayed in sparkling dust and velvet pride,
Like brilliant stars, arranged in splendid row,
The proud auriculas their lustre show:
The jealous bird now shows his swelling breast,
His many-coloured neck, and lofty crest;
Then all at once his dazzling tail displays,
On whose broad circle thousand rainbows blaze.
The wanton butterflies, with fickle wing,
Flutter round every flower that decks the spring
Then on their painted pinions eager haste,
The luscious cherry’s blood to taste.