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;
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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