IV. TO A BOY BLOWING SOAP BUBBLES. DELIGHT is glistening in thy sparkling eye, While ardently pursuing thy employ; How glows thy cheek! thy bosom heaves with joy, To see the airy bubbles mount on high; Yet, while they seem ascending to the sky, They burst, and vanish in the viewless air; But still dost thou thy patient labours ply, And others rise, as splendid, full, and fair; And thou art in thy pleasant pastime blest, To see the phantoms in the sunbeams shine: And does not man, through life, disturb his rest For air-blown bubbles, light and vain as thine? Ambition, fame, wealth, vanish from his view; And ah! less bless'd than thee, he cannot them renew. V. THE SEASONS PERSONIFIED. SPRING. WITH pace unequal, infant Spring came first, And if a tear stood trembling in his eye, Sweet as the dawn spreads o'er a cloudless sky: With plough and harrow o'er the furrowed land, Or in the copse bird-nesting, he was seen; With daffodil or primrose in his hand, He with the lambs would gambol on the green; And listening to the sky-lark's matin lay, He raised his eye of Hope, and forward looked to May. SUMMER. YOUNG Summer came, in virgin beauty fair, Her breath the fragrance of the half-won hay; AUTUMN. GAY Summer fled, we gentle Autumn hail, And look delighted on her matron grace: Gives to the swains a healthful, blithe employ. The joyous reaper's song,-the rattling team, On echoes mounting to the twilight sky; The stack-yard's shadow in the broad moon's beam, Delight the ear, and glad the farmer's eye: Then Labour's children, scorning cares to come, Join in the rural dance, and sing glad Harvest Home. WINTER. STERN Winter comes,-bald-headed, lame, and old; His frantic song a melancholy wail, At dark and dreary midnight ceaseless heard: By his resistless strength broad oaks are riven; He binds the streams till they in silence creep; His breath the mountain snow in wreaths has driven; And whelming torrents down the valleys sweep: His smiles are short, his frowns long, dark, and drear; But Christmas gambols come, to close the circling year. |