Rude Winter's surly storms are gone--
Spring, in her joy, is passing on:
Beneath her light and magic tread,
Each flow'ret lifts its gentle head:
Streamlets, so long in fetters bound,
Leap with a glad, reviving sound:
Valleys and hills, so long unseen,
Glow with a rich and silv'ry green:
The Robin's wild and thrilling note,
The silence of the grove, has broke:
The Bee, for months, in bondage held,
Wakes her hum in the wonted field:
The Horse and Ox their stalls forsake,
In leaping streams, their thirst to slake;--
To seek, on mountain-side and plain,
The feast, that Nature spreads again.
Nymph, with the sweetly-laughing eye!
Where dost thou dwell, when o'er the sky,
The murky storms of Winter scowl,
And through the leafless valleys howl;--
That thou, the moment they are gone,
Doth, lovely still, come tripping on?
Go on, upon thy blooming way!
I know thou wilt not, canst not, stay;
But oft, as on your course you wind,
Oh! cast a "ling'ring look behind!"