Richmond Daily Times

THE RETURN OF SPRING.

Dear as the dove, whose wafting wing

The green leaf ransomed from the main,

Thy genial glow, returning Spring,

Comes to our shore again:

For thou hast been a wanderer long,

On many a fair and foreign strand,

In balm and beauty, sun and song,

Passing from land to land.

Thou bring'st the blossoms to the bee,

To earth a robe of emerald dye,

The leaflet to the naked tree,

And rainbow in the sky;

I feel thy blest benign control

The pulses of my youth restore;

Opening the spring of sense and soul,

To love and joy once more.

I will not people thy green bowers

With sorrow's pale and spectre band

O—blend with thine the faded flowers

Of memory's distant land,

For thou wert surely never given

To wake regret from pleasures gone;

But like an angel sent from heaven,

To soothe creation's groan.

Then, while the groves thy garlands twine,

Thy spirit breathes in flower and tree,

My heart shall kindle at thy shine,

And worship God in thee;

And in some calm, sequestered spot,

While list'ning to thy choral strain,

Past grief shall be a while forgot,

And pleasure bloom again.