The New Hampshire Gazette

Ode to Spring.

South of the year, delightful Spring!
Thy blest return's genial wing
Inspires my languid days:
No more I sleep in loth supine,
When all creation at thy shrine
Its annual tribute pays.

Escap'd from winter's freezing pow'r
Each bloom greets thee, and each flow'r;
And, foremost, of the train,
By nature—(artless handmaid)—drest
The snowdrop comes in lily'd vest,
Prophetic of thy reign.

The lark now trains her tuneful throat,
And ev'ry loud and prightly note
Calls Echo from her cell;
Be warn'd, ye maids, that listen round,
A beauteous nymph became a sound,
The nymph, who lov'd too well.

The bright-hair'd sun, with warmth benign,
Bids tree, and shrub, and swelling vine;
Their infant buds display:
Again the streams refresh the plains,
Which winter bound in icy chains,
And sparkling bless his ray.

Life giving zephyrs breathe around,
And instant glows th' enamell'd ground
With Nature's varied hue;
Not so returns our youth decay'd,
Alas! nor air, nor sun, nor shade
The springs of life renew.

The sun's too-quick revolving beam
Apace dissolves the human dream;
And brings th' appointed hour;
Too late we catch the parting ray,
And mourn th' idly-wasted day
No longer in our pow'r.

Then happiest he, whose lengthen'd sight
Pursues, by Virtue's constant light,
A hope beyond the skies;
Where frowning winter ne'er shall come,
But rosy Spring for ever bloom,
And uns eternal rise.