And fills thy veins with verdant juice, Charged thy fair blossoms to produce, And berries scarlet red.
The triple cell, the twofold seed, A ceaseless treasure-house decreed,
Whence aye thy race may grow, As from creation they have grown, While Spring shall weave her flowery crown, Or vernal breezes blow.
Who forms thee thus, with unseen hand? Who at creation gave command,
And willed thee thus to be; And keeps thee still in being, through Age after age revolving? Who But the great God is he?
Omnipotent to work his will; Wise, who contrives each part to fill The post to each assigned;
Still provident, with sleepless care, To keep, to make thee sweet and fair For man's enjoyment-kind!
"There is no God," the senseless say :"O God! why cast'st thou us away, ?" Of feeble faith and frail,
The mourner breathes his anxious thought :By thee a better lesson taught,
Yes, He who made and fosters thee, In reason's eye perforce must be Of majesty divine.
Nor deems she, that his guardian care Will He in man's support forbear, Who thus provides for thee.
LONE flower, hemmed in with snows as white as they, But hardier far, once more I see thee bend
Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend,
Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, waylay The rising sun, and on the plains descend; Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend Whose zeal outruns his promise. Blue-eyed May Shall soon behold this border thickly set With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing On the soft west wind and his frolic peers; Nor will I then thy modest grace forget, Chaste snowdrop, vent'rous harbinger of spring, And pensive monitor of fleeting years!
PRESENTED TO A FRIEND, JANUARY, 1829.
SWEET herald of the ever-gentle Spring,
How gently waved o'er thee the Winter's wing! Around thee blew the warm Favonian gale, Devonia nursed thee in her loveliest vale; Beneath she rolled the Plym's pellucid stream, And Heaven diffused around its quickening beam. But, ah! the sun, the shower, the zephyr bland, Made thee but fair to tempt the spoiler's hand. I cannot bear thee to thy bank again, And bathe thy breast in soft refreshing rain, Nor bid the gentle zephyr round thee play, Nor 'raptured eye thee basking in the ray; But snapped untimely from thy velvet stem, Be thou my daily care, my "bounie gem," And when thus severed from thy native glade, The radiance of thy cinque-rayed star shall fade, And pale decay come creeping o'er thy bloom, A sigh, dear flower, shall mourn thy early doom.
NOR, April, fail with scent and hue, Το grace thee lowlier blossoms new. Not only that, where weak and scant Peep'd forth the early primrose plant, Now shine profuse unnumbered eyes, Like stars that stud the wint'ry skies; But that its sister cowslip's nigh, With no unfriendly rivalry
Of form and tint, and fragrant smells, O'er the green fields their yellow bells Unfold, bedropt with tawny red, And meekly bend the drooping head. Not only that the fringed edge Of heath, or bank, or pathway hedge, Glows with the furze's golden bloom; But mingling now, the verdant broom, With flowers of rival lustre deck'd, Uplifts its shapelier form erect.
And there upon the sod below, Ground-ivy's purple blossoms show, Like helmet of crusader knight, Its anthers' crosslike forms of white; And lesser periwinkle's bloom,
Like carpet of Damascus' loom,
Pranks with bright blue the tissue wove,
Of verdant foliage and above,
With milk-white flowers, whence soon shall swell, Rich fruitage, to the taste and smell Pleasant alike, the strawberry weaves Its coronets of three-fold leaves, In mazes through the sloping wood. Nor wants there, in her dreamy mood, What fancy's sportiveness may think A cup, whence midnight elves might drink Delicious drops of nectar'd dew,
While they their fairy sports pursue, And roundelays by fount or rill; The streaked and chequered daffodil.
Nor wants there many a flower beside, On holt, and hill, and meadow pied; With pale green bloom the upright box, And woodland crowfoot's golden locks; And yellow cinquefoil's hairy trail; And saxifrage with petals pale; And purple bilberry's globelike head; And cranberry's bells of rosy red; And creeping growwell blue and bright; And cranesbill's streaks of red and white, Or purple, with soft leaves of down; And golden tulip's turban'd crown, Sweet-scented on its bending stem; And bright-eyed star of Bethlehem. With those, the firstlings of their kind, Which through the bosky thickets wind
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