Young nursling of the Spring and southern mind!
Thou comest like tenderness fostered by neglect,
Or like new hope within a desert mind,
Lonely and beautiful. With new gladness decked,

The Earth is waking from her dreamless sleep
Of barrenness and winter. Warmer airs
Come hovering down from the great upper Deep,
And brood upon her. The wide azure wears

The semblance of a sleeping ocean, in
Its great blue eye, and wandering clouds spread out
Upon that upper sea their canvas thin,
And float, obedient to the winds, about

Over its depths, freighted with rain and dew,
Wherewith to bless the trees and struggling flowers,
When Night, in pensive silence, wanders through
The clustering stars, guarded by darkling hours.

Spring, gentle Spring! thou nurse of happiness!
Cradled at first among cold winter winds,
And thronging clouds, gloomy and motionless!
Thou comest like a dream of joy, that blinds
The heart with happiness; and thou dost bless
The barren earth, and the deep sluggish minds
Of men benumbed by Winter. The glad ocean
Lifts his blue waves to thee, with deep emotion.

Aye! thou didst sleep, while Winter ruled, afar,
In the calm greenness of the sea-girt isles;
While every wondering and impatient star
Watched for the coming of thy many smiles,
And thy soft winds, that would the frosts unbar,
Whereby the seed-girt flowers were held in piles
Of frozen earth. Yet still thy sleep was calm,
Beneath the olive and the graceful palm.

Then thou didst wake; thy genial influence poured
Prom the unmeasured crystalline of heaven;
The winds of winter fled away, and roared
Behind the western mountains; life was given
To the earth again; the quiet rains were showered
On its cold brow; its frozen mass was riven,
And like awakening dreams, the flowers sprang up,
Each holding to the sun its thirsty cup

One sprang, as suddenly as first love springs
At times, within the lonely soul, from out
The mass of damp leaves and decaying things,
And shyly looked at the sun, in timid doubt;
And then great clouds opened their snowy wings,
And, eagle-like, sailed leisurely about,
So that the light rain and the lighter dew
Fell, like a spiritual influence, through

The chasm of air. The joyful earth vibrated;
Verdure shot up, like many a pleasant thought
Of universal joy; the sea, elated,
Quaked on his shores; with melody untaught,
The birds sang loud; and everything created
A new joy from the Spring's young spirit caught:
And all, from man to the poor worm that crawls,
Felt like worn captives freed from Pagan thralls.

Spring, sweetest of the seasons! welcome here,
As calm is to the storm-tossed mariner,
Wine to the goblet, music to the ear,
Thou to the poet art,—aye! welcomer.
When Summer heralds thee unto thy bier,
As Autumn in his turn shall herald her,
Thy memory to me shall yet be sweet,
As of loved friends whom still we hope to meet.

But thou, the earliest of the young Spring's dreams,
Too early cam'st, and met'st the sharp white frost;
Lured by the Syren-song of babbling streams,
Venturing too soon, to thy most bitter cost.

The chill east wind thy tender petals froze,
And shy and pale thou nestlest quite away
Among thick leaves, and where the tall grass grow:
Thou hast arisen like a starry ray

Of sudden thought within a poet's brain,
Or a swift flash of passionate love within
The soul of woman; and thou dost maintain
Thyself aloof from the monotonous din

Of the old twirling oak leaves, from the moan
Of the gray weeds, the dull monotony
Of the harsh winds, and the dead limb, that, lone
And dry, swings creaking from the leafless tree.

Thou droopest towards the earth again, like one
For life and its tumultuous storms unfit;
Now chilled and shivering; but the fiery sun,
Like a great censer in the sky uplit,

Will shrivel soon thy slight leaves with his fire,
And thou wilt vanish like a cloudy scroll;
As many a poet, fainting on his lyre,
Wastes with the fiery passions of his soul.