Spring - An 1865 Poem

By J.W. Dodge. Brooklyn, N.Y., March, 1865. For the Highland News.

Smiling Spring at last is coming,

With her birds and blossoms gay;

Buds are swelling, bees are humming,

Grateful Nature hails the day.

 

Icy fringes, from the fountain,

Hasten down the dancing stream,

While the snow forsakes the mountain,

Chased by Sol's subduing beam.

 

Now the merry frogs are peeping

From the water's liquid face;

Croaking-chorus gaily keeping,

Winter's silent gloom to chase.

 

List, the stirring music sounding,

Melody fills all the air;

Warbling birds, and brooklets bounding,

To the nodding lilacs fair.

 

By the meadows, sons and daughters

Search for flow'rets o'er the plain;

Pebbly streams and laughing waters

Wake the skipping trout again.

 

Downy nests the birds are rearing,

Ants their mounds are building high;

Fruit-buds on the boughs appearing,

Warm the heart and cheery the eye.

 

Balmy airs, we hail your coming,

Butterflies, with velvet wing,

Welcome! Fluttering, warbling humming,

Welcome all the joys of Spring.

May 11, 1865. Highland Weekly News 29(3): 1.