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POEMS OF NATURE.

Wescription of Spring.

THE Soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings, With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale; The nightingale with feathers new she sings;

The turtle to her make hath told her tale.
Summer is come, for every spray now springs;
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale,
The buck in brake his winter coat he flings;

The fishes flete with new repaired scale;
The adder all her slough away she flings;
The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale ;
The busy bee her honey now she mings;
Winter is worn that was the flowres' bale.
And thus I see among these pleasant things
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs.

HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY.

The Airs of Spring.
SWEETLY breathing, vernal air,
That with kind warmth doth repair
Winter's ruins; from whose breast
All the gums and spice of th' East
Borrow their perfumes; whose eye
Gilds the morn, and clears the sky;
Whose dishevelled tresses shed
Pearls upon the violet bed;

On whose brow, with calm smiles drest,
The halcyon sits and builds her nest;
Beauty, youth, and endless spring,
Dwell upon thy rosy wing!

Thou, if stormy Boreas throws
Down whole forests when he blows,
With a pregnant, flowery birth,
Canst refresh the teeming earth.
If he nip the early bud;

If he blast what's fair or good;
If he scatter our choice flowers;
If he shake our halls or bowers;
If his rude breath threaten us,
Thou canst stroke great Æolus,
And from him the grace obtain,
To bind him in an iron chain.

THOMAS CAREW.

Return of Spring.

GOD shield ye, heralds of the spring,
Ye faithful swallows, fleet of wing,

Houps, cuckoos, nightingales,
Turtles, and every wilder bird,
That make your hundred chirpings heard
Through the green woods and dales.

God shield ye, Easter daisies all,
Fair roses, buds, and blossoms small.
And he whom erst the gore
Of Ajax and Narciss did print,
Ye wild thyme, anise, balm, and mint,
I welcome ye once more.

God shield ye, bright, embroidered train Of butterflies, that on the plain,

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Spring.

DIP down upon the northern shore,
O sweet new year, delaying long;
Thou doest expectant nature wrong,
Delaying long; delay no more.

What stays thee from the clouded noons,
Thy sweetness from its proper place?
Can trouble live with April days,
Or sadness in the summer moons?
Bring orchis, bring the fox-glove spire,
The little speedwell's darling blue,
Deep tulips dashed with fiery dew,
Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire.

O thou, new year, delaying long,

Delayest the sorrow in my blood, That longs to burst a frozen bud, And flood a fresher throat with song.

Now fades the last long streak of snow,

Now burgeons every maze of quick
About the flowering squares, and thick
By ashen roots the violets blow.
Now rings the woodland loud and long,
The distance takes a lovelier hue,
And drowned in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless song.

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
The flocks are whiter down the vale,
And milkier every milky sail,
On winding stream or distant sea;

WHEN the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places

With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;
And the brown bright nightingale amorous
Is half assuaged for Itylus,

For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces,
The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.

Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers,
Maiden most perfect, lady of light,

With a noise of winds and many rivers,

With a clamor of waters, and with might; Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet, Over the splendor and speed of thy feet; For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers, Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night. Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her, Fold our hands round her knees and cling? Oh that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her,

Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring! For the stars and the winds are unto her As raiment, as songs of the harp-player; For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,

And the south-west wind and the west wind sing.

For winter's rains and ruins are over,

And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover,

The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover

Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

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Thus I learn contentment's power From the slighted willow bower, Ready to give thanks and live

On the least that Heaven may give.

If, the quiet brooklet leaving,
Up the stormy vale I wind,
Haply half in fancy grieving

For the shades I leave behind,
By the dusty wayside dear,
Nightingales with joyous cheer
Sing, my sadness to reprove,
Gladlier than in cultured grove.

Where the thickest boughs are twining Of the greenest, darkest tree,

There they plunge, the light declining —

All may hear, but none may see.
Fearless of the passing hoof,
Hardly will they fleet aloof;

So they live in modest ways,
Trust entire, and ceaseless praise.

Spring.

JOHN KEBLE.

BEHOLD the young, the rosy Spring,
Gives to the breeze her scented wing,
While virgin graces, warm with May,
Fling roses o'er her dewy way.
The murmuring billows of the deep
Have languished into silent sleep;
And mark! the flitting sea-birds lave
Their plumes in the reflecting wave;
While cranes from hoary winter fly
To flutter in a kinder sky.
Now the genial star of day
Dissolves the murky clouds away,
And cultured field and winding stream
Are freshly glittering in his beam.

Now the earth prolific swells
With leafy buds and flowery bells;
Gemming shoots the olive twine;
Clusters bright festoon the vine;
All along the branches creeping,
Through the velvet foliage peeping,
Little infant fruits we see
Nursing into luxury.

Translation of THOMAS MOore.

ANACREON.

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(Yet careless of its mansion new For the clear region where 'twas born) Round in itself incloses,

And in its little globe's extent Frames, as it can, its native element.

How it the purple flower does slight,

Scarce touching where it lies;
But gazing back upon the skies,
Shines with a mournful light,

Like its own tear,
Because so long divided from the sphere;
Restless it rolls, and unsecure,

Trembling, lest it grow impure;
Till the warm sun pities its pain,
And to the skies exhales it back again.
So the soul, that drop, that ray,
Of the clear fountain of eternal day,
Could it within the human flower be seen,
Remembering still its former height,

Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green,
And, recollecting its own light,

Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, ex

press

The greater heaven in a heaven less.

In how coy a figure wound,

Every way it turns away;
So the world excluding round,

Yet receiving in the day.

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