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| AGAIN the infant flowers of Spring | |
| Call thee to sport on thy rainbow wing— | |
| Spirit of Beauty! the air is bright | |
| With the boundless flow of thy mellow light; | |
| The woods are ready to bud and bloom, | 5 |
| And are weaving for Summer their quiet gloom; | |
| The turfed brook reflects, as it flows, | |
| The tips of the half-unopen’d rose, | |
| And the early bird, as he carols free, | |
| Sings to his little love, and thee. | 10 |
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| See how the clouds, as they fleetly pass, | |
| Throw their shadowy veil on the darkening grass; | |
| And the pattering showers and stealing dews, | |
| With their starry gems and skyey hues, | |
| From the oozy meadow, that drinks the tide, | 15 |
| To the shelter’d vale on the mountain side, | |
| Wake to a new and fresher birth | |
| The tenderest tribes of teeming earth, | |
| And scatter with light and dallying play | |
| Their earliest flowers on the zephyr’s way. | 20 |
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| He comes from the mountain’s piny steep, | |
| For the long boughs bend with a silent sweep, | |
| And his rapid steps have hurried o’er | |
| The grassy hills to the pebbly shore; | |
| And now, on the breast of the lonely lake, | 25 |
| The waves in silvery glances break, | |
| Like a short and quickly rolling sea, | |
| When the gale first feels its liberty, | |
| And the flakes of foam, like coursers, run, | |
| Rejoicing beneath the vertical sun. | 30 |
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| He has cross’d the lake, and the forest heaves, | |
| To the sway of his wings, its billowy leaves, | |
| And the downy tufts of the meadow fly | |
| In snowy clouds, as he passes by, | |
| And softly beneath his noiseless tread | 35 |
| The odorous spring-grass bends its head; | |
| And now he reaches the woven bower, | |
| Where he meets his own beloved flower, | |
| And gladly his wearied limbs repose, | |
| In the shade of the newly-opening rose. | 40 |
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