186 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



and scatters them in ruins upon the ground ; he breathes out a blight 

 upon the forest, but the trees heed not his desolating spell, and only 

 grow more vigorous and green with the new life with which they 

 have been endowed. He gathers himself up with one last desperate 

 effort, but the warm air oppresses him, the sweet odours annoy him, 

 the light blinds and confuses him, he raves wildly and clutches at the 

 air ; and, with the last pulses of his heart, the hoary tyrant totters in 

 his footsteps, his long withered fingers let fall his icy sceptre from 

 their convulsive grasp, and he sinks down in dying agonies upon the 

 soft mossy carpet of the rejoicing earth; and, behold ! his reign is at 

 an end. 



The sights and sounds of spring have a tenfold vigour and fresh- 

 ness. It is the season of new life, new hope, and new beauty. The 

 lea^ng of the trees, the unfolding of the flowers, which follow each 

 other in qiiick succession, till the earth is mantled all over with lovely 

 forms and glittering hues ; the voices of the sweet birds singing their 

 songs of love, all repay us for the frosts and sleets of winter, and lead 

 us into the ardent embraces of the refulgent summer. 



" The budding floweret blushes at the light, 

 The meeds be sprinkled with the yellow hue, 

 In daised mantles is the mountain dight, 

 The neshe young cowslip bendeth with the dew; 

 The trees enleafed, into heaven straught, « 



When gentle winds do blow, to whistling dire is brought. 

 The evening comes, and brings the dew along. 

 The rodie welkin sheeneth to the eyne, 

 Around the alestake minstrels sing the song, 

 Young ivy round the door-post doth entwine." 



Chattekton. 



Before winter has well retreated from the fields, a few of the ear- 

 liest flowers appear, those free, wild children of the earth, and create 

 a new sensation akin to that which accompanies those faint echoes 

 of distant music which we sometimes hear in dreams. Milton in- 

 vokes them, in his " Lycidas," in a strain full of the sweetest poetry, 

 soft and soothing, like the fabled melody of the dying swan. 



•' Ye vallies low, where the mild whispers rise, 

 Of shades and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, 

 On whose fresh laps the swart star sparely looks, 

 Throw hither all your quaint enamel'd eyes, 

 That on the green turf suck the honied showeri. 

 And purple all the ground with vernal flowers." 



