By James Ayton.
- "'Tis now the season when the earth upsprings
- From Slumber; as a sphered angel's child,
- Shadowing its eyes with green and golden wings."
- Shelley.
- Welcome, heaven descended power!
- Whose spell the earth surroundeth;
- My heart attests the genial hour
- Like a wave it boundeth!
- Bride-maid of the earth and sky!
- That meet with fond caresses,
- Virgin of the radiant eye,
- And dew-besprinkled tresses!
- Pleasures numberless and dear
- TO the world thou bringest,
- On the dead season's gloomy bier,
- Fairest flowers thou flingest.
- Thou causest o'er the sleeping earth
- A still, but mighty stir
- A starting into life a birth
- From its cold sepulchre.
- Sweetest of blooms by night dews wet,
- Or courted by the gale,
- The lily and the violet
- Are opening in the vale.
- To light and glorious life upsprings
- The beauty hid in gloom;
- The butterfly leaves on bright wings
- His antenatal tomb!
- The waterfalls are 'mong the bills,
- The winds have gone to play;
- And hid by leaves, the murmuring rills
- Wind joyously away.
- In the brook the trout is leaping,
- O'er the tiny pebble falls
- The blue bird sings on the willow weeping
- By the old garden walls.
- Gentle Spring! what power of gladness,
- Disembodied, round thee keeps,
- Still to kiss the tear of sadness
- From the eye of him who weeps!
- And to teach his heart communion
- With the winds and babbling springs,
- 'Till his spirit feels a union
- With the earth's insensate things :
- "Till mute thoughts his thanks expressing
- In a flood his bosom move,
- To the Power who gives the blessing,
- To the source of life and love.