SPRING is coming, spring is coming,
Birds are chirping, insects humming;
Flowers are peeping from their sleeping,
Streams escaped from winter's keeping.
In delighted freedom rushing,
Dance along in music gushing,
Scenes of late in deadness saddened,
Smile in animation gladdened;
All is beauty, all is mirth,
All is glory upon earth.
Shout we then with Nature's voice,
Welcome Spring! rejoice! rejoice!
Spring is coming, come, my brother,
Let us rove with one another,
To our well-remembered wild wood,
Flourishing in nature's childhood;
Where a thousand flowers are springing,
And a thousand birds are singing;
Where the golden sunbeams quiver
On the verdure-girdled river;
Let our youth of feeling out,
To the youth of nature shout,
While the waves repeat our voice,
Welcome Spring! rejoice! rejoice!
FROM A FATHER TO HIS CHILDREN,
AFTER HAVING HAD HIS PORTRAIT TAKEN FOR THEM.
THIS semblance of your parent's time-worn face
Is but a sad bequest, my children dear:
Its youth and freshness gone, and in their place
The lines of care, the tracks of many a tear!
Amid life's wreck, we struggle to secure
Some floating fragment from oblivion's wave:
We pant for somewhat that may still endure,
And snatch at least a shadow from the
Poor, weak, and transient mortals! why so vain Of manly vigour or of beauty's bloom?
An empty shade for ages may remain
When we have mouldered in the silent tomb.
But no! it is not we who moulder there;
We, of essential light that ever burns,
We take our way through untried fields of air,
When to the earth this earth-born frame returns.
And 'tis the glory of the master's art
Some radiance of this inward light to find; Some touch that to his canvass may impart
A breath, a sparkle of the immortal mind.
FROM A FATHER TO HIS CHILDREN.
Alas! the pencil's noblest power can show
But some faint shadow of a transient thought,
Some waken'd feeling's momentary glow,
Some swift impression in its passage caught.
Oh! that the artist's pencil could pourtray
A father's inward bosom to your eyes;
What hopes, and fears, and doubts perplex his way,
What aspirations for your welfare rise.
Then might this unsubstantial image prove,
When I am gone, a guardian of your youth,
A friend for ever urging you to move
In paths of honour, holiness, and truth.
Let fond imagination's power supply
The void that baffles all the painter's art;
And when those mimic features meet your eye,
Then fancy that they speak a parent's heart.
Think that you still can trace within those eyes
The kindling of affection's fervid beam,
The searching glance that every fault espies,
The fond anticipation's pleasing dream.
Fancy those lips still utter sounds of praise,
Or kind reproof that checks each wayward will,
The warning voice, or precepts that may raise
Your thoughts above this treach'rous world of ill.
And thus shall Art attain her loftiest power;
To noblest purpose shall her efforts tend:
Not the companion of an idle hour,
But Virtue's handmaid and Religion's friend.
[The Mitchella is a very delicate flower, a native of our woods, and although originally named from another botanist called Mitchell, was always a great favourite of Dr. S. L. Mitchill. The "double nature" alluded to in the poem refers to the fact of the flowers uniformly growing in pairs.]
SEQUESTERED safe beneath the sylvan bow'rs,
Lo! fair Mitchella spends her joyous hours.
The double nature on her form bestow'd
Displays a winning and peculiar mode.
With lilac wreath her beauteous front is grac'd,
A crimson zone surrounds her slender waist;
A robe of green trails sweeping o'er the ground,
And scents ambrosial fill the air around-
Thus Proserpine o'er Enna's precincts stray'd
Till gloomy Dis surpris'd the unthinking maid.
From Earth to Tartarus transferr'd, in vain
She intercedes her native home to gain.
Jove grants in part her pray'r: above to know
One half the year, the rest to pass below:
And Ceres sees her daughter's two-fold mien,
On Earth a nymph, in Pluto's realms a queen.
A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS.
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS.
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced through their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap-
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
sprang from the bed to see what was the matter:
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon, on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer! now, Vixen! On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Donder and Blixen
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now, dash away, dash away, dash away all!"
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So, up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys-and St. Nicholas too.
And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnish'd with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he look'd like a pedlar just opening his pack,
His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
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