New Hampshire Statesman

POETRY.

From the New-England Farmer.

INVOCATION TO SPRING

Written during a North-East storm in May.

Daughter of Zephyr and the Solar Ray,
Thy fairy footsteps please to print this way.
It is a long while since our clime you visited,
Though never lady has been more solicited.
Why stand aloof, and vail thy beauties thus,
As if thou wert too exquisite for us.
Yet deign to dwell with Afric's tawny train
While the swart Ethiop woos thee not in vain.
Why dangling thus about the torrid zone.
While Flora, Ceres, and Pomona moan
Thy long protracted absence? Miss, I fear
Thou hast forgotten to adorn the year,
As thou wert wont with wreaths of fragrant
flowers.
For thou didst give us nought but leafless
bowers,
And sorry evergreens the first of May
Wherewith to celebrate thy holiday!
Why should we shiver thus, week after week,
Exposed to Boreal blasts so very bleak.
That while we shudder under their control,
We think them missionaries from the pole
Sent here by some satanical device,
In order to convert us—into ice?
Is it for any sore neglect of ours,
That we're half frozen in the month of flowers?
If so, accept this Ode upon condition
It makes atonement for our sad omission;
Receive this trifle for the donor's sake.
The best peace offering he knows how to make
My almanac has prophesied thy coming,
But sure the rogue who made the thing was
humming,
Leagu'd with some selfish seedsman I'll be
bound,
Who wish'd our seeds all rotted in the ground.
That so our horticulturists might hop
To get a fresh assortment from his shop.
The earth, the sea, the atmosphere and sky
All seem to give our calenders the lie.
Which call this Spring, when every body
knows
Winter still rides on every breeze that blows.
Now halfresoly'd, the other half aghast.
Still shrinking from th' intolerable blast.
Still shuddering at the gelid north-east storm.
Spring half discloses her seraphic form;
But like some moody half pleas'd nymph ap
pears,
Whose smiles just lighten through a cloud of
tears.