Thou that givest back so many a buried thing, Restorer of forgotten harmonies! Fresh songs and scents break forth, where'er thou art What wakest thou in the heart? Too much, oh! there too much! We know not well Wherefore it should be thus, yet roused by thee, What fond, strange yearnings, from the soul's deep cell, Gush for the faces we no more may see! How are we haunted, in the wind's low tone, Looks of familiar love, that never more, Vain longings for the dead!—why come they back With thy young birds, and leaves, and living blooms? Oh! is it not, that from thine earthly track EARLY SPRING. Hope to thy world may look beyond the tombs ? Breathed by our loved ones there! HEMANS. 39 EARLY SPRING. THE hawthorn whitens, and the juicy groves Where the deer rustle through the twining brake, Within its crimson folds. Now from the town, Buried in smoke, and sleep, and noisome damps, Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields, Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling drops From the bent bush as though the verdant maze, Of sweet-brier hedges I pursue my walk; And see the country far diffused around, THOMSON. A WALK BY THE WATER. LET us walk where reeds are growing, There the golden carp is laving, With the trout, the perch, and bream; Mark! their flexile fins are waving, As they glance along the stream. Now they sink in deeper billows, Dart to catch the water flies. JOY OF SPRING. Midst the reeds and pebbles hiding, Shun with fear our near approach. Do not dread us, timid fishes, We have neither net nor hook; Are to read in Nature's book. CHARLOTTE SMITH. 41 JOY OF SPRING. FOR lo! no sooner has the cold withdrawn, Burn with the golden chorus of the hive.) Now all these sweets, these sounds, this vernal blaze Is but one joy, expressed a thousand ways: And honey from the flowers, and song from birds, Are from the poet's pen his overflowing words. LEIGH HUNT. THE NIGHTINGALE AT EVE. ALL is still, A balmy night! and though the stars be dim, 'Tis the merry Nightingale That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates |