ON THE RETURN OF SPRING.
1845.
Meek daughter of a rude and stormy sire, Lovely in smiles, but lovelier in thy tears! Thy beauty but re.cals the vain desire, The baffid hope of long-forgotten years. The gems thou lovest to wear are still the same, Their forms as various, and their hues as bright. Thou art not changed. It is this wasted frame, The labouring pulse, the eye that shuns the light, The faltering step, the indifference to fame, Time's desolating march too feelingly proclaim.
Season of .joy, and melody, and love, When nature, crown'd and garlanded with flowers,
Walks forth, a rustic queen, through field and grove,
Or decks with living pomp her fairest bowers! The young may woo thee for thy sparkling mien, And lover-like thy youthful charms adore; But thou wilt early fall, as I have seen
Too many of thy kindred fall before, Whose loveliness and grace no power could save,— While Summer looks, unmoved, upon her rival's grave.
Swrstrart Jarrvis.
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