ON

THE ARRIVAL OF SPRING.

ADDRESSED

TO A LADY IN LONDON.

BY MISS CARTER.

WHILE Soft through water, earth, and air,

The vernal spirits rove,
From noisy joys, and giddy crowds

To rural scenes remove.

The mountain snows are all dissolv'd,
And hush'd the blust'ring gale,
While fragrant Zephyrs gently breathe
Along the flowery vale.

The circling planets' constant rounds
The wintry wastes repair,

And still from temporary death

Renew the verdant year.

But ah! when once our transient bloom,

The spring of life, is o'er, That rosy season takes its flight,

And must return no more.

Yet judge by Reason's sober rules,
From false Opinion free,

And mark how little pilfering years
Can steal from you or me.

Each moral pleasure of the heart,
Each smiling charm of truth,
Depends not on the giddy aid
Of wild inconstant youth.

The vain coquet, whose empty pride
A fading face supplies,

May justly dread the wintry gloom
Where all its glory dies.

Leave such a ruin to deplore
To fading forms confin'd;

Nor age, nor wrinkles, discompose
One feature of the mind.

Amidst the universal change,
Unconscious of decay,

It views unmov'd the scythe of Time

Sweep all besides away.

Fix'd on its own eternal frame
Eternal are its joys,

While, borne on transitory wings,
Each mortal pleasure flies.

While ev'ry short-liv'd flower of sense

Destructive years consume,

Through friendship's fair enchanting walks Unfading myrtles bloom.

Nor with the narrow bounds of time
The beauteous prospect ends,

But lengthen'd through the vale of death
To Paradise extends.

ΤΟ

MAY.

BY MISS WHATELY,

Afterward Mrs. Darwell.

FAIREST daughter of the year,

Ever blooming, lovely May; While thy vivid skies appear, Nature smiles and all is gay.

Thine the flowery-painted mead,
Pasture fair, and mountain green;
Thine, with infant-harvest spread,
Laughing lies the lowland scene.

Friend of thine, the shepherd plays
Blithsome near the yellow broom,

While his flock, that careless strays,
Seeks the wild-thyme's sweet perfume.

May, with thee I mean to rove

O'er these lawns and vallies fair,

Tune my gentle lyre to love,

Cherish hope, and soften care.

Round me shall the village swains,
Shall the rosy nymphs appear:
While I sing, in rural strains,
May, to shepherds ever dear.

I had never skill to raise

Paeans from the vocal strings,
To the god-like Hero's praise,
To the pageant pomp of Kings.

Stranger to the hostile plains,

Where the brazen trumpet sound; Life's purple stream the verdure stains,

And heaps promiscuous press the ground:

Where the murderous cannon's breath

Fate denounces from afar,

And the loud report of death

Stuns the cruel ear of war.

Stranger to the park and play,
Birth-night balls, and courtly trains;

Thee I woo, my gentle May,

Tune for thee my native strains.

Blooming groves, and wandering rills,
Sooth thy vacant pos dreams,
Vocal woods, and wilds, and hills,
All her unexalted themes.