As in distress o'er this wilderness I mused of stir
Where, 'mid the dark, seem'd scarce a mark our tangled path to scan,
A shadow o'er the season fell; a cloud o'er human life
A veil to be by Eternity but ne'er by time withdrawn !
How pleasant is the opening year!
The clouds of Winter melt away;
The flowers in beauty reappear ;
The songster carols from the spray;
Lengthens the more refulgent day;
And bluer glows the arching sky;
All things around us seem to say—
"Christian! direct thy thoughts on high."
In darkness, through the dreary length
Of Winter slept both bud and bloom; But Nature now puts forth her strength,
And starts renew'd, as from the tomb ; Behold an emblem of thy doom,
O man!-a star hath shone to saveAnd morning yet shall re-illume
The midnight darkness of the grave!
Yet ponder well, how then shall break
The dawn of second life on thee-
Shalt thou to hope-to bliss awake?
Or vainly strive God's wrath to flee? Then shall pass forth the dread decree,
That makes or weal or woe thine own : Up, and to work! Eternity
Must reap the harvest Time hath sown.
In spring, in summer, in autumnal wane,
How beautiful are Nature's thousand hues !
And which the fairest who can say? For each
In turn is passing fair, possesses charms
Peculiar, and upon the heart and mind
Leaves an imperial impress. Blandly crown'd
With crocus and with snowdrop coronal,
First comes the vestal Spring, with emerald scarf
And cheeks of glowing childhood. Summer next,
With all her gay and gorgeous trappings on,
Rejoicing in the glory of her youth,
And braiding roses in her auburn hair,
Under the light of the meridian sun,
In the green covert of a spreading beech:
While all around the fields are musical
With song of bird, and hum of bee. And lo!
Matronly Autumn passes, bright at first
In eye, and firm of step, her cincture rich,
Of wheat-ear and of vine-wreath intertwined;
But sadness dwells in her departing look,
And darklier glooms the atmosphere around,
Till Winter meets her on the desert heath,
And breathes consumption on her sallow cheek.
The year is now declining, and the air,
When morning blushes on the orient hills,
Embued with icy chillness. Ocean's wave
Has lost its tepid glow, and slumbering fogs
Brood o'er its level calm on windless days;
Yet when enshrined at his meridian height,
The sun athwart the fading landscape smiles
With most paternal kindness, softly warm,
And delicately beautiful-a Prince
Blessing the realms whose glory flows from him.
From bough to bough of the thick holly-tree
The spider weaves his net; the gossamer—
A tenuous line, glistening at intervals—
Now floats and now subsides upon the air;
The foliage of the forest, brown and sere,
Drops on the margin of the stubble-field,
In which the partridge lingers insecure,
And raises oft at sombre eventide,
With plaintive throat, a wild and tremulous cry.
The sickle of the husbandman hath ceased,
Leaving the lap of nature shorn and bare,
And even the latest gleaner disappear'd.
The dandelion, from the wayside path,
Its golden sun eclipsed, hath pass'd away;
And the sere nettle seeds along the bank.
The odorous clover flowers-these purely white,
Those richly purple-now are seen no more;
The perfume of the bean-field has decay'd;
And roams the wandering bee o'er many a strath,
For blossoms which have perish'd. Grassy blades,
Transparent, taper, and of sickly growth,
Shoot, soon to wither, in the sterile fields,
Doom'd in their spring to premature old age.
The garden fruits have mellow'd with the year,
Have mellow'd, and been gathered-all are gone ;
And save the lingering nectarine—but half,
Not wholly reconcil'd to us-remains
Nor trace nor token of the varied wealth
Which Summer boasted in her cloudless prime.
Yet on the wild-brier grows the yellow hip;
The dew-sprent bramble shows its clusters ripe ;
Reddens, 'mong fading branches, the harsh sloe;
And from the mountain-ash, in scarlet pride,
The fairy bunches drop their countless beads
In richness; on the lithe laburnum's bough,
Mix pods of lighter green among the leaves;
And, on the jointed honeysuckle's stalk,
The succulent berries hang. The robin sits
Upon the mossy gateway, singing clear
A requiem to the glory of the woods-
The bright umbrageousness, which, like a dream,
Hath perish'd and for ever passed away;
And, when the breeze awakes, a frequent shower
Of wither'd leaves bestrew the weeded paths,
Or from the branches of the willow whirl,
With rustling sound, into the turbid stream.
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