O then adieu, dear rural scenes!>
Fair blooming Spring, and Summer gay: Autumn's decline this truth explains, That I, like them, must soon decay.
When hoary age, like Winter peers,
The vital springs will slowly move;
Then retrospects on former years,
Like as a flatt'ring dream shall prove.
On hearing one sing in January.
SING on, sweet Thrush, upon the leafless bough;
Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain:
See aged Winter, 'mid his surly reign,
At thy blith carol clears his furrow'd brow.
So in lone Poverty's dominion drear,
Sits meek Content with light unanxious heart, Welcomes the rapid moments, bid them part, Nor asks if they bring aught to hope or fear.
I thank thee, Author of this opening day! Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies!
Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys, What wealth could never give nor take away,
Yet come thou child of poverty and care! The mite high Heaven bestowed, that mite with thee I'll share.
THERE is a bird who, by his coat,
And by the hoarseness of his note,
Might be suppos'd a crow;
A great frequenter of the church,
Where, bishop-like, he finds a perch,
And dormitory too.
Above the steeple shines a plate,
That turns and turns, to indicate
From what point blows the weather.
Look up your brains begin to swim,
"Tis in the clouds-that pleases him,
He chooses it the rather.
Fond of the speculative height,
Hither he wings his airy flight,
And then securely sees.
The bustle and the raree-show
That occupy mankind below,
Secure, and at his ease.
You think, no doubt, he sits and muses
On future broken bones and bruises,
If he should chance to fall.
No; not a single thought like that
Employs his philosophic pate,
Or troubles it at all.
He sees that this great round about-
The world, with all its motley rout,
Church, army, physic, law,
Its customs, and its bus'nesses,
Is no concern at all of his,
And says what says he? Caw,
Thrice happy bird! I too have seen
Much of the vanities of men ;
And, sick of having seen 'em,
Would cheerfully these limbs resign
For such a pair of wings as thine,
And such a head between 'em.
The general Influence of SPRING on the FEATHERED TRIBES.
LEND me your song, ye nightingales; oh pour
The mazy-running soul of melody
Into my varied verse! while I deduce
From the first note the hollow Cuckoo sings,
The symphony of Spring, and touch a theme
Unknown to fame, the passion of the groves,
When first the soul of love is sent abroad, Warm through the vital air, and on the heart Harmonious seizes, the gay troops begin
In gallant thought to plume the painted wing,
And try again the long-forgotten strain,
At first faint warbled. But no sooner grows
The soft infusion prevalent, and wide,
Than, all alive, at once their joy o'erflows
In music unconfin'd. Up springs the Lark,
Shrill voic'd, and loud, the messenger of morn;
Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings
Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts
Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse
Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush
Bending with dewy moisture, o'er the heads
Of the coy quiristers that lodge within,
Are prodigal of harmony. The Thrush
And Wood-lark, o'er the kind contending throng
Superior heard, run through the sweetest length
Of notes; when listening Philomela deigns
To let them joy, and purposes, in thought
Elate, to make her night excel their day.
The Blackbird whistles from the thorny brake;
The mellow Bullfinch answers from the grove
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