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,
In sportive mood, a healthful thriving boy
Though on the lap of chilling Winter nursed,
His look bespoke a heart alive to joy:
Along the daisied mead he loved to trip;

And if a tear stood trembling in his eye,
A cheerful smile still played upon his lip,

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 feet twin-lilies bathed in morning dew;
Sweet rose-buds blushing in her braided hair,
With sunny eye of bright ethereal blue;
Her glowing cheek was like the orient morn,

Her breath the fragrance of the half-won hay;
She whispered soft beneath the blossom'd thorn,
There loved to linger at the close of day:
She scattered blooming flowers on every side,
With verdant leaves adorned the shady grove,
And there the maid with languid sweetness sighed,
With humid eye, whose every glance was love:
So sweet her smile, so soft her heaving breast,
That every rank and age was in her presence bless'd.

AUTUMN.

GAY Summer fled, we gentle Autumn hail,
With ruddy cheek, and chastely smiling face;
We love to see her laughing in the vale,

And look delighted on her matron grace:
Her lap with blushing fruits and ripened corn
So richly swelling, spreads a general joy;
Her plenty, poured from Amalthea's horn,

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;
Yet blustering loud, and frowning furious ire;
With shivering limbs, teeth chattering in the cold,
He heaps the withered leaves, to light a fire:
He weeps, his tears are turned to rattling hail,
And icicles hang at his grisly beard;

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.