HAIL! hail! reviv'd, reviving Spring,
Fair type of heaven's eternal year;
While nature's works thy praises sing,
Lo! gratitude salutes thee here.
Swell, gently swell the solemn song;
Now pour the bounding notes along;
Teach quires below, to quires above,
To echo back the solemn lay;
And, as they praise unbounded love,
To join in bounty's holy-day.
To God, the universal King,
Be sacred every grateful quire;
MINDFUL of disaster past,
And shrinking at the northern blast,
The sleety storm returningstill,
The morning hoar, and evening chill;
Reluctant comes the timid spring.
Scarce a bee with airy ring,
Murmurs the blossom'd boughs around,
That clothe the garden's southern bound;
Scarce the hardy primrose peeps
From the dark dell's entangled steeps.
O'er the field of waving broom,
Slowly shoots the golden bloom;
And, but by fits, the furze-clad dale
Tinctures the transitory gale.
Scant along the ridgy land
The beans their new-born ranks expand;
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Oh! gracious power! for thy beloved approach
The expecting earth lay wrapt in kindling smiles,
Struggling with tears, and often overcome.
A blessing sent before thee from the heavens,
A balmy spirit breathing tenderness,
Prepared thy way, and all created things
Felt that the angel of delight was near.
Thou cam'st at last, and such a heavenly smile
Shone round thee, as beseemed the eldest-born
Of nature's guardian spirits. The great sun
Scattering the clouds with a resistless smile,
Came forth to do thee homage; a sweet hymn
Was by the low winds chaunted in the sky;
And when thy feet descended on the earth,
Scarce could they move among the clustering flowers,
By nature strewn o'er valley, hill, and field,
To hail her blest deliverer! Ye fair trees,
How are ye changed, and changing while I gaze!
It seems as if some gleam of verdant light
Fell on you from a rainbow; but it lives
Amid your tendrils, brightening every hour
Into a deeper radiance. Ye sweet birds
Were you asleep through all the wintry hours,
Beneath the waters, or in mossy caves?
There are, 'tis said, birds that pursue the spring,
Where'er she flies, or else in death-like sleep
Abide her annual reign, when forth they come
With freshen'd plumage, and enraptur❜d song
As ye do now, unwearied choristers,
Till the land ring with joy. Yet are ye not,
Sporting in tree and air, more beautiful
Than the young lambs, that from the valley-side
Send a soft bleating like an infant's voice,
Half happy, half afraid! O blessed things!
At sight of this your perfect innocence,
The sterner thoughts of manhood melt away
Into a mood as mild as woman's dreams.
The strife of working intellect, the stir
Of hopes ambitious; the disturbing sound
Of fame, and all that worshipp'd pageantry
That ardent spirits burn for in their pride,
Fly like disparting clouds, and leave the soul
Pure, and serene as the blue depths of heaven.
And from his palace, like a deity,
Darting his lustrous eyes 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 moistened
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 put 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 snow-drop, 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,
Cheerfully hymning the awakened year.
Turn to the OCEAN, how the scene
Behold the small waves melt upon the shor With chastened murmur! Buoyantly on high The sea-gulls ride, weaving a sportive dance And turning to the sun their snowy plume With shrilly pipe, from headland or fron cape,
Emerge the line of plovers, o'er the sand Fast sweeping; while to inland marsh th hern
With undulating wing scarce visible,
Far up the azure concave journies on!
Upon the sapphire deep, its sails unfurled
Tardily glides along the fisher's boat,
Its shadow moving o'er the moveless tide
The bright wave flashes from the rower's of
Glittering in the sun, at measured interval
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 fur
o'er-topped,
Listens and answers with responsive note
The glad birds are singing, The gay flow'rets springing O'er meadow, and mountain, and down the vale,
The green leaves are bursting;
My spirit is thirsting
To bask in the sun-beams, and breathe the fresh gale.
Sweet season appealing
To fancy and feeling;
Be thy advent the emblem of all I would
Of light more than vernal,
The day-spring eternal
While every sigh that Zephyr heaves,
Sprinkles the dew-drops round my head.
The yellow moss in scaly rings,
Creeps round the hawthorn's prickly bough:
The speckled linnet pecks and sings,
While snowy blossoms round her blow.
The gales sing softly through the trees, Whose boughs in green waves heave and swell;
Which shall dawn on the dark wintry-night The azure violet scents the breeze
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