James Gates Percival (1795–1856)

AGAIN the infant flowers of Spring

Call thee to sport on thy rainbow wing—

Spirit of Beauty! the air is bright

With the boundless flow of thy mellow light;

The woods are ready to bud and bloom,

And are weaving for Summer their quiet gloom;

The turfed brook reflects, as it flows,

The tips of the half-unopen’d rose,

And the early bird, as he carols free,

Sings to his little love, and thee.

See how the clouds, as they fleetly pass,

Throw their shadowy veil on the darkening grass;

And the pattering showers and stealing dews,

With their starry gems and skyey hues,

From the oozy meadow, that drinks the tide,

To the shelter’d vale on the mountain side,

Wake to a new and fresher birth

The tenderest tribes of teeming earth,

And scatter with light and dallying play

Their earliest flowers on the zephyr’s way.

He comes from the mountain’s piny steep,

For the long boughs bend with a silent sweep,

And his rapid steps have hurried o’er

The grassy hills to the pebbly shore;

And now, on the breast of the lonely lake,

The waves in silvery glances break,

Like a short and quickly rolling sea,

When the gale first feels its liberty,

And the flakes of foam, like coursers, run,

Rejoicing beneath the vertical sun.

He has cross’d the lake, and the forest heaves,

To the sway of his wings, its billowy leaves,

And the downy tufts of the meadow fly

In snowy clouds, as he passes by,

And softly beneath his noiseless tread

The odorous spring-grass bends its head;

And now he reaches the woven bower,

Where he meets his own beloved flower,

And gladly his wearied limbs repose,

In the shade of the newly-opening rose.