We have short time to stay, as you;

We have as short a spring,

As quick a growth to meet decay,

As you, or any thing:

We die,

As your hours doe; and drie

Away

Like to the summer's raine,

Or as the pearles of morning dew,

Ne'er to be found again.

HERRICK

42

ODE ON SPRING.

ODE ON SPRING.

Lo! where the rosy-bosomed Hours,

Fair Venus' train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,

The untaught harmony of spring:
While, whispering pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs through the clear blue sky
Their gathered fragrance fling.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch

A broader, browner shade,

Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech

O'ercanopies the glade,

Beside some water's rushy brink

With me the Muse shall sit, and think

(At ease reclined in rustic state)

How vain the ardor of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,

How indigent the great!

ODE ON SPRING.

Still is the toiling hand of Care;

The panting herds repose:

Yet, hark, how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!

The insect-youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honeyed spring,
And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gayly-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.

To Contemplation's sober eye
Such is the race of man:

And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.

Alike the Busy and the Gay

But flutter through life's little day,

In Fortune's varying colors drest: Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance, Or chilled by Age, their airy dance

They leave, in dust to rest.

Methinks I hear, in accents low,

The sportive kind reply :

43