So man's frail friends with him remain,
While summer richly decks the plain;
But as his wintry blasts come on,
Like thee, they instantly are gone.
HAIL! sprightly stranger of the wood,
Attendant on the Spring;
Now heaven repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome sing.
Soon as the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear;
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
And mark the rolling year?
Delightful visitant! with thee
I hail the time of flowers,
When heaven is filled with music sweet
Of birds among the bowers.
The school-boy wandering in the wood,
To pluck the flowers so gay,
Starts thy curious voice to hear,
And imitates thy lay.
Soon as the pea puts on the bloom,
Thou fliest the vocal vale,
An annual guest in other lands,
Another spring to hail.
Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year.
O could I fly, I'd fly with thee;
We'd make, with social wing,
Our annual visit round the globe,
Companions of the Spring.
LONE Songster of the infant year,
The first amid the feather'd quire;
Who, warbling many a wild note clear,
Attun'st thy lay to young desire.
Why swells with grief thy little throat?
Why do thy plumes disorder'd lie?
Say, from what cause, that pensive note proceeds,
And whence that alter'd eye?
Has fate, beneath the fowler's form,
With cruel aim, thy bliss annoy'd?
Or truant boy, intent on harm,
With careless joy, thy young destroy'd?
If 'tis thy lot these woes to prove,
Thy plaintive strain still let me hear;
For as thou wail'st thy injur'd love,
I'll sooth thy sufferings with a tear.
THE MORNING LARK.
FEATHER'D Songster, warbling high,
Mounting in the clear blue sky;
Opening with thy matin lay,
The bright, the pearly eye of day.
Teach my soul, on early wing,
Thus to soar, and thus to sing;
While the rays of dawning light
Gild thee in thy tuneful flight.
May the day-spring, from on high,
Seen by faith's religious eye,
Cheer me with its vital ray,
Promise of eternal day.
Now music waking, speaks the sky-lark nigh,
Just starting from the corn, he cheerly sings,
And trusts with conscious pride his buoyant wings;
Still louder sings, and in the face of day,
Springs up, and calls on Giles to mark his way.
Close to his eyes, his hat he instant bends,
And forms a friendly telescope, that lends
Just aid enough to dull the glaring light,
And place the wavering bird before his sight,
As oft beneath a cloud he sweeps along,
Lost for a while, yet pours the varied song;
The eye still follows, and the cloud moves by,
Again he stretches up the azure sky;
His form, his motion, undistinguish'd quite,
Save when he wheels direct from shade to light;
E'en then the songster a mere speck became,
Gliding like fancy's bubbles in a dream.
The gazer sees; but, yielding to repose,
Unwittingly his jaded eye-lids close.
POOR, melancholy bird, who all night long
Tell'st to the moon thy tale of plaining woe;
From what sad cause can such sweet sorrows flow?
And whence that mournful melody of song?
The poet's musing fancy would translate
The tender sounds which swell thy little breast;
When still at dewy eve thou leav'st thy nest,
Thus to the list'ning night to tell thy fate.
Pale sorrow's victims wast thou once among,
Though now released in woodland wilds to rove?
Say, hast thou felt from friends some cruel wrong,
Or diedst thou martyr of disastrous love?
Ah, songstress sad! that such my lot might be
To rove, and sing at liberty like thee.
THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE ROSE.
From the Persian.-Fox.
THE plaintive minstrel of the midnight grove
Had ceas'd her song; now beam'd the orient day,
And all the powers of young delight and love,
Hail'd the glad influence of the morning ray,
On the bent footstalk of the fragrant flower,
Whose glowing beauties now their tints disclose, Blind to a thousand sweets which grac'd the bower, The mournful Nightingale address'd the rose. Fairest of all the daughters of the spring,
Supreme o'er all the flowers that round thee bloom, To whom all captive hearts their tribute bring, Ah! why effuse that more than sweet perfume? In bashful silence blushed the lovely rose,
While sportive zephyr midst her foliage play'd,. Bidding the infant buds their charms expose,
And to the Nightingale these sounds convey'd.
Know, sweetest warbler, to requite thy song,
Whose plaintive melody delights my soul,
These balms of Eden, as I flew along,
From the enchanting Selima I stole ;
From her soft bosom bore them to this bow'r,
And breathed their odours on thy darling flow'r.
THE DEPARTURE OF THE NIGHTINGALE.
SWEET Songster of the woods, a long adieu!
Farewell, sweet minstrel of the early year!
Ah! 'twill be long e'er thou wilt sing anew,
And pour thy music on the night's dull ear.
Whether on spring thy wandering flight await,
Or whether silent in our groves thou dwell,
The pensive muse shall own thee for her mate,.
And still protect the song she loves so well.
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