VERSES ON SPRING. 153 



IV. 



Now o'er the path a sultry hum 

 Is floating on the breathless air ; 

 And leafy groves again become 

 A covert from the noon-day glare : 

 There, as th' entangled sunbeams flow 

 In sparkling rout athwart the glade, 

 The quivering foliage plays, below 

 Repeated in the chequered shade. 



V. 



As twilight falls, the nightingale 

 And thrush in mellow concert vie, 

 Filling the windings of the vale 

 With long-drawn fits of melody. 

 And while to Night some dewy-damp 

 Pale flowers their love are whispering, 

 The glow-worm hangs her tiny lamp 

 By fringed copse or faery ring. 



VI. 



Enchanted hours of love and song ! 

 Spring-time of life ! — why were ye ever 

 Fleeting as bubbles swept along 

 By hoarse Avoca's dusky river : 

 Image of Time ! thy dark waves bear 

 Upon the surface straws and foam, 

 Flung on the bank and lost in air 

 Ere thou have reached thy ocean-home. 



VII. 



So — fled our Spring — we learn to know 

 Its joys the root of future pain, 

 Our cherished fame an empty show, 

 Our time mispent, our science vain : 

 Happy — if warned in time, before 

 We find our home the heaped sod, 

 Faith and repentance may restore 

 The changed spirit back to God. 



H. S. B. 

 May, 1836. 



