Concord Register

THE FIRST OF MARCH

"The bud is in the bough and the leaf in the bud,
And Earth's beginning now in her veins to feel the blood,
Which, warm'd by summer suns in th' alembic of the vine,
From her founts will overrun in a ruddy gush of wine.
The perfume and the bloom that shall decorate the flower,
Are quickening in the gloom of their subterranean bower;
And the juices meant to feed trees, vegetables, fruits,
Unerringly proceed to their preappointed roots.
"How awful the thought of the wonders under ground,
Of the mystic changes wrought in the silent, dark profound,
How each thing upward tends by necessity decreed,
And the world's support depends on the shooting of a seed.
The Summer's in her ark, and this sunny-pinion'd day
Is commission'd to remark whether Winter holds her sway;
Go back, thou dove of peace, with the myrtle on thy wing,
Say that floods and tempests cease, and the world is ripe for Spring
Thou hast fann'd the sleeping Earth till her dreams are all of flowers
And the waters look in mirth for their overhanging bowers;
The forest seems to listen for the rustle of its leaves,
And the very skies to glisten in the hope of summer eves.
Thy vivifying spell has been felt beneath the wave,
By the dormouse in its cell, and the mole within its cave,
And the summer tribes that creep or in air expand their wing,
Have started from their sleep at the summons of the Spring.
The cattle lift their voices from the valleys and the hills,
And the feather'd race rejoices with a gush of tuneful bills;
And if this cloudless arch fills the poet's song with glee,
Thou sunny first of March, be it dedicate to thee."

From the Boston Commercial Gazette of April 21.