IH.

See from the gloomy caverns of the earth, By Winter long enthrall'd, Enchanter fell! The flowers spring up like spirits, issuing forth, Radiant and pure, at Spring's benignant spell, And prank the mountain, mead, and mossy dell; The soft rich green steals lovelier day by day Into the hues of Nature, and the swell Of woodland music bursts from every spray ;Awake, awake, my heart, and join the general lay!

IV.

One soul of pure delight all Nature fills,
Ten thousand voices peal one note of joy;
Hark! to the gushing music of the rills,
That doth with plaintive murmurings reply
To th' amorous dove, that brooding sits on high
Among the clustering ivy's glossy leaves-
Who not regardless of the melody

Of the blythe stream, her sweet nest deftly weaves, And with her soothing song her tender grief relieves.

V.

And, lo! upon yon green hill's gentle crest,
Rich with all flowers in early spring-time born,
Where the first dewy beams of sun-light rest
On the white cloud of yonder blossomed thorn,

That breathes its sweetness to the breeze of morn-
A troop of lambs for merry pastimes meet;

Dashing the cowslips' dew, the sward they spurn, Sudden they stop their numerous glancing feet, Then wheel and hurry back with many a jocund bleat.

VI.

Oh! why in such a gladsome scene as this, Where all is hope and love, and joy and truth, Hast thou, my heart! no kindred sense of bliss, Such as was wont to thrill thy earlier youth? Changed is that heart and all its dreams in sooth, Since its young days of feeling and of folly! Time hath its fibres torn with cankering tooth, And now the venom hath it pierced so wholly That even its purest joy is almost melancholy.

VII.

And when I gaze upon the jocund Spring,
With all her gorgeous gifts by grove and plain,
My soul broods o'er what she can never bring
Back to the sorrowing hearts on earth again!
I think of him who sleeps beneath the main,
The dark blue waters of the inland sea,

That laves the shining coasts of southern Spain,
Where with one gentle maid his nurse to be,
As kind a spirit fled as ever Death set free.

VIII.

Gently that spirit pass'd, as child to sleep
Upon its mother's bosom ;-o'er his brow
As softly did the final shadows creep,

As evening's twilight shades o'er Alpine snow :
Oh, Brother! if thy purer spirit now
Beholds, as I believe, my fond regret―

By thy dear Shade-by this fraternal glow—
May my last trust with thine on high be set :
So shall we meet in Heaven, as ne'er on Earth we met.*

1X.

But thou recallest other friends than these,
And other tombs dost to our memory bring;
Thou who revivest fountains, fields, and trees,
Can'st thou restore our boyhood's heart, O Spring?
Can'st thou youth's glories round our manhood fling,
Reanimate each perish'd dream of joy-

Restore the music to the murmuring

Of streams, and give the radiance to the eye
That made earth ever green, and ever bright the sky?

* William K. Lietch, A. M. died of consumption on the 6th of June, 1837, aged 32, while on his passage to Italy in quest of health, and was buried in the sea off Malaga.

x.

Nations grow old like men and
;

graver cares
In both usurp their boyhood's revelry.
Where is the "First of May" of other years?
The May-pole on the green where shall we see,
Danc'd round by laughing lads and maidens free,
While their gray sires kept time with foot and hand?
Alas! for "Merrie England's" ancient glee,

On village green no more doth May-pole stand,
For scarce a village green is left throughout the land.

XI.

Oh! gazing on that well known beechen group,
Whose breezy branches rocking sadly slow,
Seem consciously to sigh, and sweep, and stoop,
And welcome me again, as long ago;

Or stretch'd beside this murmuring fountain's flow,
To mark the flowers along its margin hung,

And seem each individual flower to know

Blue-bell and broom!-oh! can these flowers have sprung Full twenty times since those expired I loved when young.

XII.

Silent, mysterious principle of Life!

Active, though hid,-undying, though unseen,—
Thou sole Immortal! when shall cease the strife
Which sixty varying centuries have seen

"Tween thee and Death? Ah! why in every scene
Doth thy fell foe the fairest victims seize,

Sweep from the earth its pleasant robe of green,

Silence the harmony of birds and bees,

And blight young Beauty's cheek with wasteful wan disease?

XIII.

The lonely forest flowers of various dyes
In pleasant groups, or standing fair alone,
Breathe out their peaceful spirits to the skies,
Across the waste their faded forms are strewn :
Ah! why should loveliness be thus o'erthrown,
While rugged forms may never know decay?
The savage rocks wear an eternal frown,
While blossoms, flowers, and foliage fade away,
And Virtue briefly bloom while Vice remains for aye

?

XIV.

Forbear, my Muse. Is this thy promised hymn?

For partial ills cease fondly to repine;

Though much in mortal fate is dark and dim,
Doubt not thou yet shalt know the whole design,

All worthy of its Architect Divine.

Meantime, hark to the blackbird pealing forth
His deep-ton'd melody from yon tall pine,
The voice of natural piety! whose birth,
Seraphically sweet, seems more of heaven than earth.