SPRING.
Oh, how delightful to the soul of man,
How like a renovating spirit comes,
Fanning his cheek, the breath of infant Spring!
Morning awakens in the orient sky
With purpler light, beneath a canopy
Of lovely clouds, their edges tipped with gold;
And from his palace, like a deity,
Darting his lustrous eye from pole to pole,
The glorious sun comes forth, the vernal sky
To walk rejoicing. To the bitter north
Retire wild winter’s forces—cruel winds—
And griping frosts—and magazines of snow—
And deluging tempests. O’er the moisten’d fields
A tender green is spread; the bladed grass
Shoots forth exuberant; th’ awakening trees,
Thawed by the delicate atmosphere, put forth
Expanding buds; while, with mellifluous throat,
The warm ebullience of internal joy,
The birds hymn forth a song of gratitude
To him who sheltered, when the storms were deep,
And fed them through the winter’s cheerless gloom.
Beside the garden path, the crocus now
Puts forth its head to woo the genial breeze,
And finds the snowdrop, hardier visitant,
Already basking in the solar ray.
Upon the brook the water-cresses float
More greenly, and the bordering reeds exalt
Higher their speary summits. Joyously,
From stone to stone, the ouzel flits along,
Startling the linnet from the hawthorn bough;
While on the elm-tree, overshadowing deep
The low-roofed cottage white, the blackbird sits
Cheerily hymning the awakened year.
Turn to the ocean—how the scene is changed.
Behold the small waves melt upon the shore
With chastened murmur! Buoyantly on high
The sea-gulls ride, weaving a sportive dance,
And turning to the sun their snowy plumes.
With shrilly pipe, from headland or from cape,
Emerge the line of plovers, o’er the sands
Fast sweeping; while to inland marsh the hern,
With undulating wing scarce visible,
Far up the azure concave journies on!
Upon the sapphire deep, its sails unfurl’d,
Tardily glides along the fisher’s boat,
Its shadow moving o’er the moveless tide;
The bright wave flashes from the rower’s oar,
Glittering in the sun, at measured intervals;
And, casually borne, the fisher’s voice,
Floats solemnly along the watery waste;
The shepherd boy, enveloped in his plaid,
On the green bank, with blooming furze o’ertopped,
Listens, and answers with responsive note.
Eccentric Biography.
JAMES CHAMBERS.
This unfortunate being, well known by the designation of “the poor poet,” was born at Soham, in Cambridgeshire, in 1748, where his father was a leather-seller, but having been unfortunate in business, and marrying a second wife, disputes and family broils arose. It was probably from this discomfort in his paternal dwelling-place, that he left home never to return. At first, and for an uncertain period, he was a maker and seller of nets and some small wares. Afterwards, he composed verses on birthdays and weddings, acrostics on names, and such like matters. Naturally mild and unassuming in his manners, he attracted the attention and sympathy of many, and by this means lived, or, rather, suffered life! That his mind was diseased there can be no doubt, for no sane being would have preferred an existence such as his. What gave the first morbid turn to his feelings is perhaps unknown. His sharp, lively, sparkling eye might have conveyed an idea that he had suffered disappointment in the tender passion; while, from the serious tendency of many of his compositions, it may be apprehended that religion, or false notions of religion, in his very young days, operated to increase the unhappiness that distressed his faculties. Unaided by education of any kind, he yet had attained to write, although his MSS. were scarcely intelligible to any but himself; he could spell correctly, was a very decent grammarian, and had even acquired a smattering of Latin and Greek.
From the age of sixteen to seventy years, poor Chambers travelled about the county of Suffolk, a sort of wandering bard, gaining a precarious subsistence by selling his own effusions, of which he had a number printed in cheap forms. Among the poorer people of the country, he was mostly received with a hearty welcome; they held him in great estimation as a poet, and sometimes bestowed on him a small pecuniary recompense for the ready adaptation of his poetical qualities, in the construction of verses on certain occasions suitable to their taste or wishes. Compositions of this nature were mostly suggested to him by his muse during the stillness of night, while reposing in some friendly barn or hay-loft. When so inspired, he would immediately arise and commit the effusion to paper. His memory was retentive, and, to amuse his hearers, he would repeat most of his pieces by heart. He wandered for a considerable time in the west of Suffolk, particularly at Haverhill; and Mr. John Webb, of that place, in his poem entitled “Haverhill,” thus notices him:—
An hapless outcast, on whose natal day
No star propitious beam’d a kindly ray.
By some malignant influence doom’d to roam
The world’s wide dreary waste, and know no home.
Yet heav’n to cheer him as he pass’d along,
Infus’d in life’s sour cup the sweets of song.
Upon his couch of straw, or bed of hay,
The poetaster tun’d the acrostic lay:
On him an humble muse her favours shed,
And nightly musings earn’d his daily bread.
Meek, unassuming, modest shade! forgive
This frail attempt to make thy memory live.
Minstrel, adieu!—to me thy fate’s unknown;
Since last I saw you, many a year has flown.
Full oft has summer poured her fervid beams,
And winter’s icy breath congeal’d the streams.
Perhaps, lorn wretch! unfriended and alone
In hovel vile, thou gav’st thy final groan!
Clos’d the blear’d eye, ordain’d no more to weep,
And sunk, unheeded sunk, in death’s long sleep!