TO MAY.

How many wan and faded cheeks

Have kindled into health!

The old, by thee revived, have said,
"Another year is ours ;"

And wayworn wanderers, poorly fed,
Have smiled upon thy flowers.

Who, tripping, lisps a merry song
Amid his playful peers?

The tender infant, who was long

A prisoner of fond fears;

But now, when every sharp-edged blast
Is quiet in its sheath,

His mother leaves him free to taste

Earth's sweetness in thy breath.

Thy help is with the weed that creeps
Along the humblest ground;

No cliff so bare but on its steeps
Thy favours may be found;
But most on some peculiar nook

That our own hands have drest,
Thou and thy train are proud to look,
And seem to love it best.

And yet how pleased we wander forth

When May is whispering, "Come! Choose from the bowers of virgin earth The happiest for your home;

Heaven's bounteous love through me is spread

From sunshine, clouds, winds, waves,

41

DREAMED that as I wandered by the way,
Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring,
And gentle odours led my steps astray,
Mixed with a sound of waters, murmuring

Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay

Under a copse that hardly dared to fling.

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets;

Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,