The plants no more are dried, the meadow dead;
No more the rose-bud hangs her pensive head;
The shrubs revive in valleys, mead, and bowers,
And every stalk is garland'd with flowers;
In silken robes each hillock stands arrayed-
Be gay too soon the flowers of spring will fade!
Clear drops, each morn, impearl the rose's bloom,
And from its leaf the zephyr drinks perfume;
The dewy buds expand their lucid store:
Be this our wealth; ye damsels ask no more,
Though wise men envy, and though fools upbraid,
Be gay too soon the flowers of spring will fade!
The dew-drops sprinkled by the musky gale,
Are changed to essence ere they reach the dale;
The mild, blue sky a rich pavilion spreads,
Without our labor, o'er our favor'd heads.
Let others toil in war, in arts, in trade-
Be gay too soon the flowers of spring will fade!
Late gloomy winter chilled the sullen air,
Till Soliman arose, and all was fair.
Soft in his reign, the notes of love resound,
And pleasure's rosy cup goes freely round.
Here on the bank which mantling vines o'ershade,
Be gay too soon the flowers of spring will fade!
May this rude lay, from age to age remain,
A true memorial of this lovely train.
Come, charming maid, and hear thy poet sing,
Thyself the rose, and he the bird of spring;
Love bids him sing, and love will be obey'd.
Be gay too soon the flowers of spring will fade!
Translation of SIR WILLIAM JONES.
From the Turkish of MESIHI.
Alas, delicious Spring! God sends thee down
To breathe upon his cold and perish'd works
Beauteous revival; earth should welcome thee-
Thee and the west wind, thy smooth paramour,
With the soft laughter of her flowery meads;
Her joys, her melodies, the prancing stag
Flutters the shivering fern; the steed shakes out
His mane, the dewy herbage, silver-webb'd,
With frank step trampling; the wild goat looks down
From his empurpling bed of heath, where break
The waters deep and blue, with crystal gleams
Of their quick-leaping people; the fresh lark
Is in the morning sky; the nightingale
Tunes evensong to the dropping waterfall.
Creation lives with loveliness-all melts
And trembles into one mild harmony.
Thy beams are sweet, beloved spring!
The winter-shades before thee fly;
The bough smiles green, the young birds sing,
The chainless current glistens by,
Till countless flowers like stars illume
The deepening vale and forest gloom.
O welcome, gentle guest from high,
Sent to cheer our world below,
To lighten sorrow's faded eye,
To kindle nature's social glow!
O, he is o'er his fellows blest
Who feels thee in a guiltless breast!
Peace to the generous heart essaying
With deeds of love to win our praise!
He smiles, the spring of life surveying,
Nor fears her cold and wintry days:
To his high goal with triumph bright
The calm years waft him in their flight.
Thou glorious goal, that shin`st afar,
And seem'st to smile us on our way,
Bright is the hope that crowns our war,
The dawn-blush of eternal day;
There shall we meet, this dark world o'er,
And mix in love for evermore.
Translation of W. S. WALKER,
THOMAS THAARUP, 1749-1821.
Look all around thee! How the spring advances !
New life is playing through the gay green trees;
See how, in yonder bower, the light leaf dances
To the bird's tread, and to the quivering breeze!
How every blossom in the sunlight glances!
The winter frost to his dark cavern flees,
And earth, warm-wakened, feels through every vein
The kindly influence of the vernal rain.
Now silvery streamlets, from the mountains stealing,
Dance joyously the verdant vales along;
Cold fear no more the songster's voice is sealing;
Down in the thick dark grove is heard his song;
And, all their bright and lovely hues revealing,
A thousand plants the field and forest throng;
Light comes upon the earth in radiant showers,
And mingling rainbows play among the flowers.
Translation of C. T. BROOKS.
'Tis sweet, in the green spring,
To gaze upon the wakening fields around;
Birds in thicket sing,
Winds whisper, waters prattle from the grounά;
A thousand odors rise,
Breathed up from blossoms of a thousand dyes.
Shadowy, and close, and cool,
The pine and poplar keep their quiet nook;
For ever fresh and full,
Shines at their feet the thirst-inviting brook;
And the soft herbage seems
Spread for a place of banquets and of dreams.
Thou, who alone art fair,
And whom alone I love, art far away:
Unless thy smile be there,
It makes me sad to see the earth so gay:
I care not if the train
Of leaves, and flowers, and zephyrs go again!
Translation of W. C. BRYANT. ESTEVAN MANUEL DE VILLEGAS, 1595-1669.
The blue-birds and the violets
Are with us once again, And promises of summer spot The hill-side and the plain.
The clouds along the mountain-tops
Are riding on the breeze,
Their trailing azure trains of mist
Are tangled in the trees.
The snow-drifts, which have lain so long,
Haunting the hidden nooks,
Like guilty ghosts have slipped away,
Unseen, into the brooks.
The streams are fed with generous rain,
They drink the wayside springs,
And flutter down from crag to crag,
Upon their foamy wings.
Through all the long wet nights they brawl,
By mountain-homes remote,
Till woodmen in their sleep behold
Their ample rafts afloat.
The lazy wheel that hung so dry
Above the idle stream,
Whirls wildly in the misty dark,
And through the miller's dream.
Loud torrent unto torrent calls,
Till at the mountain's feet
Flashing afar their spectral light,
The noisy waters meet.
They meet, and through the lowlands sweep,
Toward briny bay and lake,
Proclaiming to the distant towns
"The country is awake!"
Winter is past; the heart of Nature warms
Beneath the wreck of unresisted storms;
Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen,
The southern slopes are fringed with tender green;
On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves,
Spring's earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves,
Bright with the hues from wider pictures won,
White, azure, golden-drift, or sky, or sun:
The snowdrop, bearing on her radiant breast
The frozen trophy torn from winter's crest;
The violet, gazing on the arch of blue
Till her own iris wears its deepened hue;
The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mold,
Naked and shivering, with his cup of gold.
Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on high
Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky;
On all her boughs the stately chestnut cleaves
The gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves;
The house-fly, stealing from his narrow grave,
Drugged with the opiate that November gave,
Beats with faint wing against the snowy pane,
Or crawls tenacious o'er its lucid plain;
From shaded chinks of lichen-crusted walls
In languid curves the gliding serpent crawls;
The bog's green harper, thawing from his sleep
Twangs a hoarse note, and tries a shortened leap.
On floating rails that face the softening noons
The still, shy turtles range their dark platoons,
Or toiling, aimless, o'er the mellowing fields,
Trail through the grass their tesselated shields.
At last young April, ever frail and fair,
Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair,
Chased to the margin of receding floods,
O'er the soft meadows starred with opening buds,
In tears and blushes sighs herself away,
And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May.
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