I.

ODE ON THE SPRING.

Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
Fair VENUS' train appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckow's note,

The untaught harmony of spring :
While whisp'ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs thro' the clear blue sky
Their gather'd fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade;
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade 1

Beside some water's rushy brink

With me the Muse shall sit, and think

(At ease reclin'd in rustic state) How vain the ardour of the Crowd, How low, how little are the Proud, How indigent the Great!

O'ercanopied with luscious woodbine.

Shakesp. Mids. Night's Dream.

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And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.

Alike the Busy and the Gay

But flutter thro' life's little day,

In fortune's varying colours drest :

Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance,

Or chill'd by age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.

Methinks I hear in accents low

The sportive kind reply:

Poor moralist! and what art thou?

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Shew to the sun their waved coats drop'd with gold.

Milton's Paradise Lost, book 7.

3 While insects from the threshold preach, etc. — M. Green, in the

Grotto. Dodsley's Miscellanies, Vol. V. p. 161.

Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,

Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among

Wanders the hoary Thames along

His silver-winding way.

Ah happy hills, ah pleasing shade,

Ah fields belov'd in vain,

Where once my careless childhood stray'd,

A stranger yet to pain!

I feel the gales, that from ye blow,

A momentary bliss bestow,

As waving fresh their gladsome wing,

My weary soul they seem to sooth,

And, redolent 2 of joy and youth,

To breathe a second spring.

1 King Henry the Sixth, Founder of the College.

2 And bees their honey redolent of spring.

Dryden's Fable on the Pythag. System.

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Say, Father THAMES, for thou hast seen

Full many a sprightly race Disporting on thy margent green

The paths of pleasure trace,

Their murm'ring labours ply

'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint