All hail vernal Phoebus! all hail ye soft breezes!
Announcing the visit of spring;
How green are the meadows! the air how it pleases!
How gleefully all the birds sing!
Begone ye rude tempests, nor trouble the æther,
Nor let blushing Flora complain,
While her pencil was tinging the tulip, bad weather
Had blasted the promising gem.
From its verdant unfoldings, the timid narcissus
Now shoots out a diffident bud;
Begone ye rude tempests, for sure as it freezes
Ye kill this bright child of the wood:
And Peace gives new charms to the bright beaming season;
The groves we now safely explore
Where murd'ring banditti, the dark sons of treason,
Were shelter'd and aw'd as before.
The swain with his oxen proceeds to the valley
Whose seven years sabbath concludes,
And blesses kind heaven, that Britain's black ally
Is chas'd to Canadia's deep woods.
And Echo no longer is plaintively mourning,
But laughs and is jocund as we;
And the turtle ey'd nymphs, to their cots all returning,
Carve 'Washington,' on every tree.
I'll wander along by the side of yon fountain,
And drop in its current the line,
To capture the glittering fish that there wanton;
Ah, no! 'tis an evil design.
Sport on little fishes, your lives are a treasure
Which I can destroy, but not give;
Methinks it's at best a malevolent pleasure
To bid a poor being not live.
How lucid the water! its soft undulations
Are changeably ting'd by the light;
It reflects the green banks, and by fair imitations
Presents a new heaven to sight.
The butterfly skims o'er its surface, all gilded
With plumage just dipt in rich dies;
But yon infant has seiz'd the poor insect, ah! yield it;
There, see the freed bird how it flies!
But whither am I and my little dog straying?
Too far from our cottage we roam;
The dews are already exhal'd; cease your playing,
Come, Daphne, come let us go home.