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From “The Seasons: Spring”
BUT happy they! the happiest of their kind! | |
| Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate | |
| Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend. | |
| ’T is not the coarser tie of human laws, | |
| Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind, | 5 |
| That binds their peace, but harmony itself, | |
| Attuning all their passions into love; | |
| Where friendship full-exerts her softest power, | |
| Perfect esteem enlivened by desire | |
| Ineffable, and sympathy of soul; | 10 |
| Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will, | |
| With boundless confidence: for naught but love | |
| Can answer love, and render bliss secure. | |
| Meantime a smiling offspring rises round, | |
| And mingles both their graces. By degrees, | 15 |
| The human blossom blows; and every day, | |
| Soft as it rolls along, shows some new charm, | |
| The father’s lustre and the mother’s bloom. | |
| Then infant reason grows apace, and calls | |
| For the kind hand of an assiduous care. | 20 |
| Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, | |
| To teach the young idea how to shoot, | |
| To pour the fresh instruction o’er the mind, | |
| To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix | |
| The generous purpose in the glowing breast. | 25 |
| O, speak the joy! ye whom the sudden fear | |
| Surprises often, while you look around, | |
| And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss, | |
| All various nature pressing on the heart; | |
| An elegant sufficiency, content, | 30 |
| Retirement, rural quiet, friendships, books, | |
| Ease and alternate labor, useful life, | |
| Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven. | |
| These are the matchless joys of virtuous love; | |
| And thus their moments fly. The Seasons thus, | 35 |
| As ceaseless round a jarring world they roll, | |
| Still find them happy; and consenting Spring | |
| Sheds her own rosy garlands on their heads: | |
| Till evening comes at last, serene and mild; | |
| When after the long vernal day of life, | 40 |
| Enamored more, as more remembrance swells | |
| With many a proof of recollected love, | |
| Together down they sink in social sleep; | |
| Together freed, their gentle spirits fly | |
| To scenes where love and bliss immortal reign. | 45 |
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