THE APPROACH OF SPRING. REJOICE, my little merry mate, The blithesome spring is coming, When thou shalt roam, with heart elate, To hear the wild bee humming ; To hear the wild bee humming round The primrose, sweetly blowing, And listen to each gentle sound Of gladsome music flowing. The birds shall sing from many a bower, Joy like thy own obeying ; And, round full many a blooming flower, Be playing, love on wings as light The snowdrops by our garden walk, The robin from the pear-tree bough, And soon they'll be more long and light, With warm and pleasant weather; And we, to see the sunset bright, May go abroad together. Then shall our summer haunts again The poplar grove, the shady lane, For flowers are treasures unto thee, Spring is to me no merry time; But since thou canst its joys partake, Bernard Barton: 1784-1849. Bernard Barton was employed in a bank at Woodbridge, in Suffolk, when he published his first volume of poems in 1820. The success of his venture tempted him to renounce business for a literary life, but Lord Byron and Charles Lamb, though they encouraged him to continue writing, dissuaded him from trusting entirely to the pen. Barton produced several other volumes of poetry, and in his latter days received a government pension of £100 a year. He was a member of the Society of Friends. TO SPRING. O THOU, delicious Spring! Nursed in the lap of thin and subtle showers, That over grassy walks their greenness fling,- Come to us: for thou art Like the fine love of children, gentle Spring! Or like a virgin's pleasant welcoming; And thou dost ever bring A tide of gentle but resistless art Red Autumn from the South Contends with thee; alas! what may he show? Giving earth-piercing flowers their primal1 growth, Gay Summer conquers thee, And yet he has no beauty such as thine: What may his dull and lifeless minstrelsy Come, sit upon the hills, And bid the waking streams leap down their side, And crescent Dian 2 ride, I too will breathe of thy delicious thrills, Alas! bright Spring! not long Shall I enjoy thy pleasant influence: For thou shalt die the summer heat among, Sublimed to vapour in his fire intense, And, gone for ever hence, Exist no more; no more to earth belong, So I who sing shall die: Worn unto death, perchance, by care and sorrow; 1 primal-earliest. 2 Dian-the moon, (see notes on Hymn to Diana.) 3 sublimed-rarefied, made light or ethereal. And breathe of joyance keener and more high, Albert Pike: born, 1809. American. The son of a journeyman shoemaker, 'who worked hard, paid his taxes, and gave all his children the benefit of a good education.' After leaving Harvard College, Pike became a schoolmaster, then an editor, and finally a lawyer. He was a general in the Confederate army during the late civil war, and lost his life in the course of the struggle. chief work was a volume of Hymns to the Gods. Pike's WRITTEN IN MARCH. THE Cock is crowing, The green field sleeps in the sun; Are at work with the strongest, Their heads never raising; There are forty feeding like one! Like an army defeated On the top of the bare hill; There's joy in the fountains; Small clouds are sailing, Blue sky prevailing ; The rain is over and gone! William Wordsworth: 1770-1850. (See page 52.) 1 anon—anon—repeatedly, again and again. THE FIRST OF APRIL. Now the golden_morn aloft Waves her dew-bespangled wing; The birds his presence greet; Thomas Gray: 1716-1771. A native of London, educated at Eton and Cambridge. His poems are simple and unaffected in thought, but very elaborate in form, showing, perhaps, more of culture than of inspiration. The best-known is Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Gray spent most of his life at Cambridge, for the enjoyment of learned society and literary pursuits. MAY-DAY. QUEEN of fresh flowers, Whom vernal stars obey, Bring thy warm showers, 1 vermeil-red, blushing. 2 ecstasy-unbounded delight. |