Our elder poets are rife in description of the spring; but passing their abundant stores to “Rare Ben,” one extract more, and “the day is done.”
Whence is it————————
——————Winter is so quite forced hence
And lock’d up under ground, that ev’ry sense
Hath several objects; trees have got their heads,
The fields their coats; that now the shining meads
Do boast the paunse, lily, and the rose;
And every flower doth laugh as zephyr blows?
The seas are now more even than the land;
The rivers run as smoothed by his hand;
Only their heads are crisped by his stroke.
How plays the yearling, with his brow scarce broke,
Now in the open grass; and frisking lambs
Make wanton ’saults about their dry suck’d dams?
Who, to repair their bags, do rob the fields?
How is’t each bough a several musick yields?
The lusty throstle, early nightingale,
Accord in tune, tho’ vary in their tale;
The chirping swallow, call’d forth by the sun,
And crested lark doth his division run:
The yellow bees the air with murmur fill,
The finches carol, and the turtles bill.
Jonson.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 48·52.