All, all was bright!—at times like this No sight or sound comes in amiss; But things around appear to win A colour from the mood within. The earth laughed into flower the sky These youthful days are past and gone; I much am changed in mind and frame; Yet Spring, sweet Spring, comes still the same. I grow young with the young year then ; I live my past lot o'er again; And in these hours of song and bloom See types of those beyond the tomb. D O! spring-time now will soon be here, The spring of Heaven's millennial year; When God again o'er nature's night, Shall say, "Be light," and there is light. O Thou that into glorious birth While humbler things Thy influence share, Be not the soul forgotten there! Rise, Sun of Glory! rise, and shine O, while I seem to catch the sound Grant me within a growth to prove Of faith, and hope, and joy, and love! Spring-tide of grace, thy course begin; Chase the dark reign of sense and sin; From light to light advance and shine, Till heaven's eternal spring is mine! NOVEMBER. THE autumn wind is moaning low the requiem of the year; The days are growing short again, the fields forlorn and sere; The sunny sky is waxing dim, and chill the hazy air; And tossing trees before the breeze are turning brown and bare. All nature and her children now prepare for rougher days: The squirrel makes his winter bed, and hazel The sunny swallow spreads his wing to seek a brighter sky; And boding owl, with nightly howl, says cloud and storm are nigh. No more 'tis sweet to walk abroad among the evening dews: The flowers are fled from every path, with all their scents and hues : The joyous bird no more is heard, save where his slender song The robin drops, as meek he hops the withered leaves among. Those withered leaves, that slender song, a solemn truth convey,~ In wisdom's ear they speak aloud of frailty and decay: They say, that man's apportioned year shall have its winter too; Shall rise and shine, and then decline, as all around him do. |