CALLED FORTH BY MRS. HEMANS' "VOICE OF SPRING."
I COME, I come, from the icy North,
From my alpine palace I issue forth;
I come from the caves of the blue glacier,
My voice in the whirlwind's roar ye may hear.
My car swiftly glides o'er the watery waste,
Its course through the snow-drift may now be traced.
As I traverse the West, my nitrous breath
Dooms plants, and herbs, and flowers to death;
E'en amaranths fade on the young beauty's grave,
And laurels now droop o'er the dust of the brave.
O well is it fitting this season of gloom,
To speak of destruction, and point to the tomb!
My spirits rush forward on racks of the North,
They shiver the pines in their eddying wrath,
The larches they strip, the gnarl'd oak feels their blow,
The cedar branch snaps with the weight of the snow,
The surge into mountains is lash'd by their blast.
The sea-boy is wash'd from the slippery mast.
All mute are the groves, not a chorister heard,
As in the soft prime when bird carol'd to bird;
But the barnacle flocks, as they soar on high,
And wing their far flight for a milder sky,
Scream forth their harsh notes, and in wedge-like form
The mid air they cleave, surmounting the storm.
The fountains lie bound in their dark, deep source,
No more chafe the brooks in their pebbly course;
My sceptre I've waived o'er the mountain drear,
And the cataract halts in its proud career;
While masses of ice down the blue Rhone sweep,
As wave chase wave, rushing on to the deep.
Though stern is my form, in my train I bring
Sweet joys and bright hours outrivalling spring;
The song and the dance in gay halls resound,
The feast it is spread, the winc-cup goes round;
While Charity lightens the prisoner's chain,
And gladdens the heart of the desolate train.
But Christmas has vanish'd, Saint Valentine's come,
The songsters are mated, the first flowers bloom,
I wrestle with Spring, we by turns rule the hour;
But, aided by Phoebus, she baffles my power.
Here my empire's dissolved, my throne melts away-
To realms then I hasten still owning my sway!