When first each joy that childhood yields
I left, and saw my native fields

At distance fading dark and blue,

As if my feet had gone astray
In some lone desart's pathless way,

I turn'd, my distant home to view.

Now tir'd of folly's fluttering breed,
And scenes where oft the heart must bleed,
Where every joy is mix'd with pain;

Back to this lonely green retreat,
Which Infancy has render'd sweet,

I guide my wandering steps again.

And now, when rosy sun-beams lie
In thin streaks o'er the eastern sky,

Beside my native stream I rove;
When the gray sea of fading light
Ebbs gradual down the western height,
I softly trace my native grove,

When forth at morn the heifers go,
And fill the fields with plaintive low,
Re-echoed by their young confin'd;

When sun-beams wake the slumbering breeze,
And light the dew-drops on the trees,
Beside the stream I lie reclin'd,

And view the water-spiders glide
Along the smooth and level tide,

Which, printless, yields not as they pass;

While still their slender frisky feet

Scarce seem with tiny step to meet

The surface blue and clear as glass.

Beside the twisted hazel bush

I love to sit, and hear the thrush,

Where cluster'd nuts around me spring;

While from a thousand mellow throats
High thrill the gently-trembling notes,
And winding woodland echoes ring.

The shadow of my native grove,
And wavy streaks of light I love,

When brightest glows the eye

of day;

And shelter'd from the noon-tide beam,

I pensive muse beside the stream,

Or by the pebbled channel stray.

Where little playful eddies wind,
The banks with silvery foam are lin'd,
Untainted as the mountain-snow;
And round the rock, incrusted white,
The rippling waves in murmurs light

Reply to gales that whispering blow.

I love the riv❜let's stilly chime,
That marks the ceaseless lapse of time,

And seems in fancy's ear to say "A few short suns, and thou no more Shalt linger on thy parent shore,

But like the foam-streak pass away."

Dear fields, in vivid green array'd!
When every tint at last shall fade

In death's funereal cheerless hue,
As sinks the latest fainting beam
Of light that on mine eyes shall gleam,
Still shall I turn your scenes to view.

SPRING, AN ODE.

.

WRITTEN WHILE RECOVERING FROM SICKNESS.

How softly now the vernal gales
Caress the blossoms on the trees,

How bright the glistening vapour sails,
And floats, and wantons on the breeze!

Sweet Spring in vest of emerald hue,
With daisy buds embroider'd fair,

Calls the gray sky-lark to renew

Her morning carols, high in air.

Soft as she treads the dewy vale,

She listens oft in silence deep, To hear her favourite primrose pale Awaking from her winter sleep.

The fostering gales, the genial skies,
My languid frame to health restore;

And every sun appears to rise

More bright than e'er it rose before.

Soul of the world! thy cheering rays

Bid

my

full heart with transport burn!

Again on nature's charms I gaze,

And youth's delightful days return.

Sure he that bids thy radiance glance

On numerous orbs that round thee wheel, Awakes each secret slumbering sense,

The heavenly breath of Spring to feel.

I see the hazel's rough notch'd leaves

Each morning wide and wider spread ;

While every sigh that zephyr heaves

The yellow moss in scaly rings

Creeps round the hawthorn's prickly bough

The speckled linnet pecks and sings,
While snowy blossoms round her blow.

The gales sing softly through the trees,

Whose boughs in green waves heave and

swell;

The azure violet scents the breeze

Which shakes the yellow crow-foot's bell.