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| HAIL, happy shades! though clad with heavy snows, | |
| At sight of you with joy my bosom glows; | |
| Ye arching pines, that bow with every breeze, | |
| Ye poplars, elms, all hail my well known trees! | |
| And now my peaceful mansion strikes my eye, | 5 |
| And now the tinkling rivulet I spy; | |
| My little garden, Flora, hast thou kept, | |
| And watch’d my pinks and lilies while I wept? | |
| Or has the grubbing swine, by furies led, | |
| The enclosure broke, and on my flowrets fed? | 10 |
| Ah me! that spot with blooms so lately graced, | |
| With storms and driving snows is now defaced; | |
| Sharp icicles from every bush depend, | |
| And frosts all dazzling o’er the beds extend: | |
| Yet soon fair spring shall give another scene, | 15 |
| And yellow cowslips gild the level green; | |
| My little orchard sprouting at each bough, | |
| Fragrant with clustering blossoms deep shall glow: | |
| Ah! then ’t is sweet the tufted grass to tread, | |
| But sweeter slumbering is the balmy shade; | 20 |
| The rapid humming bird, with ruby breast, | |
| Seeks the parterre with early blue-bells drest, | |
| Drinks deep the honeysuckle dew, or drives | |
| The laboring bee to her domestic hives: | |
| Then shines the lupine bright with morning gems, | 25 |
| And sleepy poppies nod upon their stems; | |
| The humble violet and the dulcet rose, | |
| The stately lily then, and tulip blows. | |
| Farewell, my Plutarch! farewell, pen and muse! | |
| Nature exults—shall I her call refuse? | 30 |
| Apollo fervid glitters in my face, | |
| And threatens with his beam each feeble grace: | |
| Yet still around the lovely plants I toil, | |
| And draw obnoxious herbage from the soil; | |
| Or with the lime-twigs little birds surprise, | 35 |
| Or angle for the trout of many dyes. | |
| But when the vernal breezes pass away, | |
| And loftier Phœbus darts a fiercer ray, | |
| The spiky corn then rattles all around, | |
| And dashing cascades give a pleasing sound; | 40 |
| Shrill sings the locust with prolonged note, | |
| The cricket chirps familiar in each cot. | |
| The village children, rambling o’er yon hill, | |
| With berries all their painted baskets fill. | |
| They rob the squirrel’s little walnut store, | 45 |
| And climb the half exhausted tree for more; | |
| Or else to fields of maize nocturnal hie, | |
| Where hid, the elusive water-melons lie; | |
| Sportive, they make incisions in the rind, | |
| The riper from the immature to find; | 50 |
| Then load their tender shoulders with the prey, | |
| And laughing bear the bulky fruit away. | |
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