A VALLEY IN SPRING-TIME.

73

A VALLEY IN SPRING-TIME.

A GREEN and silent spot, amid the hills;
A small and silent dell. O'er stiller place
No singing sky-lark ever poised himself.
The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope,
Which hath a gay and gorgeous covering on, ·
All golden with the never-bloomless furze,
Which now blooms most profusely: but the dell,
Bathed by the mist, is fresh and delicate
As vernal corn-field, or the unripe flax,
When, through its half-transparent stalks, at eve,
The level sunshine glimmers with green light.
Oh! 'tis a quiet, spirit-healing nook!

Which all, methinks, would love; but chiefly he,
The humble man, who, in his youthful years,
Knew just so much of folly as had made
His early manhood more securely wise.
Here he might lie on fern or withered heath,
While from the singing-lark (that sings unseen
The minstrelsy that solitude loves best),
And from the sun, and from the breezy air,
Sweet influences trembled o'er his frame;
And he, with many feelings, many thoughts,
Made up a meditative joy, and found
Religious meanings in the forms of Nature.
And so, his senses gradually wrapped

In a half sleep, he dreams of better worlds,
And dreaming, hears thee still, O singing-lark,
That singest like an angel in the clouds !

L

SPRING FLOWERS.

How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean Are Thy returns! e'en as the flowers in Spring; To which, besides their own demean, The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring. Grief melts away

Like snow in May,

As if there were no such cold thing.

Who would have thought my shrivelled heart Could have recovered greenness? It was gone Quite under ground; as flowers depart To see their mother-root, when they have blown : Where they, together,

All the hard weather,

Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

O that I once past changing were, Fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither! Many a Spring I shoot up fair

Offering at heaven, growing and groaning thither. Nor doth my flower

Want a Spring shower;

My sins and I joining together.

And now in age I bud again,

After so many deaths I live and write :
I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish versing. Oh! my only Light,

THE FIRST SWALLOW.

It cannot be

That I am he

On whom Thy tempests fell at night!

These are Thy wonders, Lord of love!
To make us see we are but flowers that glide :
Which when we once can find and prove,
Thou hast a garden for us where, to bide.
Who would be more,

Swelling through store,

Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.

THE FIRST SWALLOW.

THE gorse is yellow on the heath,

The banks with speedwell flowers are gay,

The oaks are budding, and beneath,

The hawthorn soon will bear the wreath,
The silver wreath of May.

The welcome guest of settled Spring,
The swallow, too, is come at last ;
Just at sunset, when thrushes sing,
I saw her dash with rapid wing,
And hailed her as she passed.

Come, Summer visitant, attach

To my reed roof your nest of clay,
And let my ear your music catch,
Low twittering underneath the thatch,
At the grey dawn of day.

75

Lo! such the child whose early feet
The paths of peace have trod;
Whose secret heart, with influence sweet,
Is upward drawn to God!

THE DAY OF FLOWERS.

77

By cool Siloam's shady rill

The lily must decay,

The rose that blooms beneath the hill
Must shortly fade away.

And soon, too soon, the wintry hour

Of man's maturer age,

Will shake the soul with sorrow's power, .
And stormy passions rage!

O Thou, whose infant feet were found
Within Thy Father's shrine!

Whose years, with changeless virtue crowned,
Were all alike Divine:

Dependent on Thy bounteous breath,
We seek Thy grace alone,

In childhood, manhood, age, and death,
To keep us still Thine own.

THE DAY OF FLOWERS.

O FATHER! Lord!

The All-beneficent! I bless Thy name

That Thou hast mantled the green earth with flowers,

Linking our hearts to Nature. By the love

Of their wild blossoms, our young footsteps first

Into her deep recesses are beguiled—