SPRING:

IN FOUR SONNETS.

I.

THERE is a stir abroad in earth and sky.

The busy clouds, now huddling, now dispersing, Seem with the windy messengers conversing.

The landscape is alive: the shadows fly,

Coursed o'er the uplands by the hunter breeze.

The shifting lights are colour to the eye,
Clothing with warmth the sober scenery,

The russet corn-lands and the crisp, bare trees.

A dotting scarce perceptible, thrown out

In tints of livelier brown, on hedge and bough,

Gives mystic signs. A spirit is about,

Felt through all Nature's veins; and all things now, Swelling with vernal hope, are ready quite,

Waiting His word, who said, Let there be light.

II.

Timely, though late, the pomp of Spring draws on: Their flowery carpets are the meads preparing :

The woods, as yet some wintry tatters wearing, Now haste their liveries of green to don.

The banks blush violets, while the primrose wan

Thrusts her meek head from forth the trodden leaves Of forest path: with them the cowslip weaves Her golden pendents. Thickly now upon The dressy hedge-rows snowy blossoms stand,

Of sloe and cherry; for the speckled boughs

Have burst at once, as by enchanter's wand,

Into rich network: green, where late the plough's Fresh trace appear'd, the fields and every thing.

Hark! from his airy tower the lark proclaims the

Spring.

III.

What merry companies of blue-bells dance

Beneath the underwood! To meet the Spring,

The Earth has caught Heaven's tender colouring,

As if reflecting back the blue expanse

Seen through the beech-wood's gauzy canopy.

I tread on flowers; flowers meet my every glance :

It is the scene, the season of romance,

The very

"bridal of the earth and sky."

Even the Naiad binds her hair with flowers,
In honour of the May: the very weeds
That love to dip in that wild stream of ours,
Strive to look gay amid the verdant reeds.

Now nought in concert with the stream is heard,
Save the impassion'd cooing of that lonely bird.

IV.

Still I must tell of Spring, for every sense
Drinks in the balmy season; every day,

The pageant varies its magnificence:

In place of gaudy Apple, blooms the May;

The Elm's green blossoms shed, the Chestnut's gay

Aspiring plumes of white and crimson rise.

Endless the rich and fanciful array.

O glorious types of that lost Paradise

Where all was beauteous change without decay! Fair Spring, with all thy sweets, and songs of mirth, And touching beauty, all too quickly o'er,

Thou savourest of heav'n more than of earth ;
Brief pledge of richer blessings yet in store,

Fulness of joy, pleasures for evermore.

Chenies, 1823.

EVENING SKETCH.

Now o'er yon arched steep the sun
His golden way hath slowly won,

And, curtain'd in the crimson West,

Descended to his nightly rest.

Not wholly has the sunlight faded :

The far perspective still reveals

The track that bore his fervid wheels.

Through the air, half bright, half shaded, Still does a waning lustre play,

Loitering like a dream of day.

Lightly in the firmament

The moon her crystal circlet shapes ;

And while, in shadowy vapour spent,
Day's lingering beam escapes,

As the last fainting streak declines,

With clearer, brighter radiance shines,

And burnishes her coronet,

On Twilight's misty brow to set.

The stream, in drowsy murmur creeping,

Seems on its pebbled channel sleeping;

Save where the impetuous torrent throws

Its weight of ever-falling snows,